Series of Amazing Journey

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2011-10-31T20:27:00.003+08:00

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West Coast trip - Day 4 [Yosemite National Park]

2007-04-20T23:20:00.000+08:00

West Coast trip - Day 3 [San Francisco]

2007-04-19T21:41:00.000+08:00

China Town

Around 8.30 o'clock in the morning, we departed from Crowne hotel for breakfast at Chinatown. FYI, San Franciso's Chinatown is the largest Chinatowns in the States. It is also the oldest Chinatown. Trust me, it is muchhhhh larger than Los Angeles' Chinatown. For breakfast, the tour guide brought us to dim sum restaurant. Because of the "limited" budget, me and Sebastian decided to have breakfast somewhere else. We ended up at bakery shop and bought Charsiew bun and egg tart. Yummyy!!!

3 for 10 bucks

Chinatown, located in downtown San Francisco, has a lot of smaller side streets and alleyways which gives an authentic characteristic. We tried to find the famous Dragon gate on the corner of Bush Street and Grant Avenue, but we almost got lost. Luckily, we did found our bus on time.

Typical Chinatown street

Love this picture!! So pretty ... and well composed ... Hahaha

colorful butterflies

Lombard Street

Next was Lombard Street, the crookedest [most winding] street in the United States. What does this mean? The steep, hilly street was created with sharp curves to switchback down the one-way hill past beautiful Victorian mansions. The street is paved with bricks and is an amazing site to see!

The famous Lombard street view from Leavenworth Street

The houses beside the street are really someone houses. Someone really live there! Yeah in fact, I saw one of the owner shaping his garden.

Me and the Lombard street

We climbed up to Hyde street and took couple pictures. The Powell-Hyde cable car stops at the top of the block.

The unique Powell-Hyde cable car

Alcatraz island (top left background), Lombard St from top

Palace of Fine Arts
The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District is a building originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. It is now popular as a favorite wedding location for brides and grooms throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. When we went there, we saw a bunch of primary students running around. Probably there were having study tour.

Palace of Fine Arts - in front of Colonnades

The park @ Palace of Fine Arts

Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening into the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. It connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County as part of US Highway 101 and California State Highway 1.

The bridge has six total lanes of vehicle traffic, and walkways on both sides of the bridge. On an average day there are 100,000 vehicles crossing the bridge. Amazing!

According to the tour guide, the Golden Gate Bridge is a "popular" site for suicide. In 2006 itself, there were 34 confirmed bridge jump suicides, excluding various unwitnessed deaths that appeared to be suicides but could not be confirmed.

Me posing on the south side of the bridge

Pier 39 & Bay Cruise
Pier 39 is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction. The Pier is located at the edge of the Fisherman's Wharf district which is pretty close to both North Beach and Chinatown.

Hard Rock Cafe @ Pier 39

Giant crab in front of the Aquarium of the bay at Fisherman's Wharf

We reached there at 2 pm and hurried to queue for the bay cruise tour which started at 2.30 pm. Therefore, we had no time for a proper lunch. We grabbed $5 hotdog, finished it within 5 mins and ran for the ferry.

Sebastian, hotdog, and bay cruise ticket

A very crowded queue for the bay cruise tour

Luckily we were able to find a good spot to take pictures. Sebastian said that I should take as many pictures as possible since we paid $21 for this tour. No problem Sebastian!

Pier 39 - taken from ferry boat

The ferry brought us to see Angel Island, Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, and the might Alcatraz island. Along the way, we saw several sea gulfs tailing our boat and the captain warned us that they might come to disturb people.

From top left: sea gulf, SF from San Francisco Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, Me and Sebastian

Golden Gate Bridge from the water surface

Alcatraz was well known as a military and federal prison until 1963, when it became a national recreation area. During its 29 years of operation, there were no prisoners had ever successfully escaped. 34 prisoners were involved in 14 attempts, 2 men trying twice; 7 were shot and killed, 2 drowned, 5 were unaccounted for, and the rest were recaptured. Only 2 prisoners made it off the island but were returned, one in 1945 and one in 1962.

The Alcatraz island

Sea lions at nearby Pier 39

At the end of the tour, we still have time to wander around the pier and took a bunch of pictures. The pier was really really crowded. A lot of Asian tourists there! There was a funny sign about "No Thongs" hung at one of the restaurants there. The one who dares to wear only thongs in this windy and cool weather must be crazy!

Pier 39 - The crowd and street performer

The Twin Peaks

The Twin Peaks are the second highest hills in San Francisco after Mount Davidson. The peaks are around 900 feet above the surface. From the peak, San Francisco looks very small, foggy and dense. The tour guide shorten the time to spend here since he said he was cold. I told him that it is nothing compared with Ohio...

San Francisco view from Twin Peaks

We departed from the peaks for Castro street which is a gay village, and later on headed toward City Hall.

City Hall

City Hall is our last stop of today city tour. To me every city hall in States look almost the same: the dome-kind architecture. Therefore I didn't take much pictures here.

City Hall - outside and inside the building

Nite in San Francisco

It was raining quite heavily when we went off from City Hall. And it made me hungry!! The tour guide decided to bring us back to china town for dinner. We ended up eating nasi lemak at Singapore Restaurant there. Look at my dinner below! It did not taste as nice as the outlook ... pretty disappointed.

Nasi Lemak

Before we headed back to our hotel, the tour guide made a quick stop for those who wanted to take picture of Bay Bridge at night.

Bay bridge at nite

We arrived at hotel by 10.30 pm and that's it for today. Next day: beautiful Yosemite Park! Stay tune.

West Coast trip - Day 2 [Solvang Market and Hearst Castle]

2007-04-18T23:24:00.000+08:00

In the morning, we waited at hotel lobby for a "correct" tour guide since at that time, there were at least 2 different tour groups picking up their clients. Luckily, we were able to find our tour guide and departed at 9.30am. The bus that we took, brought us to another meeting point where we switched to other bus. From this point, we were separated from xinen's parents and therefore the journey began...

Our destination for a day was: Solvang Market and Hearst Castle.

Solvang Market, Solvang

Solvang market entrance

The trip to Solvang took about 3 hours. We reached there by noon and had our lunch at Viking Garden Restaurant. The restaurant has Viking decorations like its name. We had western-chicken rice for $8 which was served in small portion. But it tasted quite ok.

Lunch at Viking Garden Restaurant

FYI, Solvang is a little Danish replica village. The windmills, quiet streets, horse drawn carriages, wineries, Danish bakeries, authentic Danish costumes worn by some shop keepers, Danish atmosphere and architecture are how the city looks like.

The giant windmill in Danish architecture

The shops at Solvang

Nice Oreo Fudge that I bought!!

On the way to Hearst Castle - Ostrich farm

Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle was is located near San Simeon, California, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. William Randolph Hearst, is the man behind Hearst Castle. He is an important figure from the 20th century whose influence extended to publishing, politics, Hollywood, the art world and everyday American life. By the mid-1920s he had a nation-wide string of 28 newspapers. Cool right?

By the way, we reached the castle at 2 o'clock, and took 2.40pm tour.

The Hearst Castle from a distance

The castle itself is five miles (eight kilometers) inland on a hill. The guide brought us touring around the park and its main building. Look how huge and interesting the Hearst Castle is!

Hearst Castle - Neptune Pool and Casa Grande

In front of the Casa Grande

Casa Grande or the main house has 5 rooms on the ground floor: the Assembly Room which is the largest of the four sitting rooms, the Refectory which is the huge dining room, the Morning Room which is a magnificent sitting room filled with Spanish antiques and Flemish tapestries, the Billiard Room which is a game room, and the Theater which is the largest room in Casa Grande.

The Dining Room where only those invited can eat with Hearst

The dining room decoration and the statue in Hearst's Theater

The tour ended 1hr 30mins later at the indoor pool. It was a great tour. Awesome mansion!!

The indoor pool, modeled after Roman baths, with gold mosaic tiles

From the castle, the bus drove us to Crowne Hotel, Oakland South - Union City. It is located at the east bay of San Fransisco. We had our dinner at Burger King on the way to hotel. Not feeling to eat chinese food at that time =)

On the way to Oakland

That's all for today! Next entry will be about San Fransisco ... wohooo!!

West Coast trip - Day 1 [Hollywood - China Town]

2007-04-17T23:58:00.000+08:00

Today we began our trip to West Coast. After a-month preparing the itineraries and booking the tickets etc ... (thanks Sebastian), we were ready for West Coast. We woke up at 3 am to catch 6 AM flight to Los Angeles. Special thanks to our friend Ching Yuh who was willingly sacrifice his time to sent us to the airport!

The flight to Los Angeles took about 7 hours plus an-hour delay in Chicago. Yah ... it was not a direct flight. Luckily, I had an access to the Red Carpet Lounge since I have a Krisflyer Gold membership card. Look how convenience it was in the lounge ... Hehe!!!

At the Red Carpet Lounge, Chicago

Around 3 pm Pacific Time (LA has 3 hrs time diff), we reached the City of Angel, Los Angeles. After the tour guide picked us up at the airport and brought us to hotel for rest. But we did not want to waste our time doing nothing on the first day. So after settling our luggage, we rushed to Hollywood. We reached at Hollywood/Highland Station after almost an-hour bus + Metro subway ride. Pretty tiring but exciting!!

Hollywood/Highland Station

Our first destination was Mc Donald! Yup ... I was verrry hungry at that time.

Pplz said the McDonald's on Hollywood Boulevard are the most expensive exterior of any McDonald's restaurant in the world. It looks pretty clumsy to me. But it does have a few minor extras inside, though: a large skylight to let in sunshine and a few Hollywood stars pictures.

Mc Donald - Hollywood Boulevard

Xinen's parents were with us. We actually planned our trip with them, so that they can help us translating chinese to english since we were taking Chinese tour (yah ... the tour guide speaks chinese as a main language). But, turned out the tour guide changed our schedule, and therefore we were on different tour. I'll explain about the tour later. But now, let's look at Hollywood first!

The Hollywood Sign from Hollywood & Highland Center

Hollywood & Highland center

El Capitan Walt Disney Theater across Hollywood and Highland Center

Hollywood Boulevard is a such crowded place. The sidewalk along this road and Vine Street is so called Hollywood Walk of Fame. It has more than 2,000 five-pointed stars featuring the names of celebrities honored by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce along the road.

Hollywood Walk of Fame

We went to Kodak Theater complex, but didn't have an access to the theater. FYI, Kodak Theater is the home of the annual Academy Awards Ceremonies ("The Oscars"). And for American Idols fans, it is well known as a place where the final two competition is held.

Kodak Theater

Next is the famous Grauman's Chinese Theater, the worldwide-famous movie theater located at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard whereas nearly 200 Hollywood celebrity handprints, footprints, and autographs printed in the cement of the theater's forecourt.

Grauman's Chinese Theater

Picture with Mr. Schwarzenegger's fingerprint and footprint

In front of theater, there were a lot of movie characters walking around and offered if we wanna take picture with them. I did not know that we should give them tips. When they asked, we gave them a dollar.

Picture with Yoda Starwars

We walked along Hollywood Blvd until Hollywood/Vine subway station. Along the way I saw people selling Star Maps for only $5, live band, skateboarder, Green-leaves tree.

The uniqueness of Hollywood Blvd

Capitol Record

We therefore contd our journey to China Town, which was nothing much there since all stores closed after 5.30pm. So disappointed!

LA China Town

We headed back to our hotel after "tapao-ing" our dinner at cheap kopitiam. We can't find any taxis in China Town, therefore we took Metro train back to Union Station. Remember when Jack Bauer (24 Season 6) intercepted the bomb carried by Fayed follower at Union Station? Haha ... 24 freaks!

The waiting room at the Los Angeles Union Station.

We reached our hotel around 7 pm and had our rest. Waiting eagerly for the real tour tomorrow!

White Easter

2007-04-08T11:58:00.000+08:00

Happy easter everyone! Easter is always specially for me. Three years ago I was baptized back in Singapore. Now, I saw people getting baptized. How wonderful Lord called each of us. St Clare Church has 3 people this year, and I heard from Alvin, St. Mary of the Angels in Singapore has 100+ people. Praise you Lord...

K, back in Cleveland. Today is around 27F (-2.8C). Lake effect snow (Erie) brought us 4-6 inches of snow as the Easter gift. No white Christmas back in December, but we have white Easter. Haha ... April Snow is unusual!

Saturday morning - Outside balcony

I reached the church by 6.30 pm for choir rehearsal. In the vigil celebration, we have timpani, bells, piano, organ, and trumpet as the instruments. Cool right? Yup, It looks like orchestra!

Church of St. Clare - Parking lot covered by snow

Church of St. Clare - the Altar

The service started at 8 pm with no light. Then the priest brought the easter candle and lighted up parishioner's candles. Exsultet therefore, intoned by the deacon. The reading that struck me today is about Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea. I recalled what I learnt during RCIA couple years ago. It doesn't matter whether it is Egyptian or any other tyrant, it is just a symbolic for a sin. Moses brought Israelite from Red Sea means brought us out from sin, cleanse us from sin! The same thing about Paul Theology about "die and rising from the death". John 3 and Roman 6! Hehe I still remember the chapters.

The Baptismal font

Congratz for those who are baptized! May the Lord guide you to be light of the world. Be faithful, be strong and always remember that you are not alone.

People cleaning their cars @ the parking lot

Oooh no, I thought the snow would probably stop after mass, but I was wrong. I needed to brush the snow and scrap the ice. The road was so slippery. But, I managed to take couple pictures hehe.

Once again, happy easter everyone. Let's spread the joy and peace to the world!
K... I need to sleep now.

The Warmness of Kentucky

2007-03-24T23:30:00.000+08:00

The itinerary for this weekend has been fixed. Kentucky is our next State to conquer. Eleven of us were in the trip. We woke up super early this time and departed at 4 o'clock in the morning. It took around 6 hrs to reach our first destination, Lexington.

Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington

We reached Kentucky Horse Park by 10:30 am and spent 3 hours there. We saw horses, barns, horse show, gift shop as expected. It was fun, although a little bit regret that I skipped the horseback riding.

Group picture & the horse rider

The horse show - Parade of Breeds

Interestingly, they have park memorial which is the gravesites of numerous great horses. Cool right?

Horses buried at WALNUT HALL STUD CEMETERY

We had chances to take pictures with horses.

We saw people taking test for the horse riding. Perhaps, they have some sort of license ... hmmmm

Horse riding test

We had our lunch at Cracker Barrel and headed toward Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort.

Kentucky Capitol, Frankfort

We spent an hour there and had our photo session. It looks like Spring there. Flowers blooming, sunny weather ... what else!!

Dun really get what Ameek tried to do

Funny and nice pictures

Me of course...

At Floral Clock: Family picture?? or ... Stupid pose??

After this, we spent another hour at Vietnam memorial war, had our dinner, played go-kart, and drove to our hotel in Cave City, KY

Mammoth Cave
On Sunday, we spent our day at Mammoth Cave, the most elongated cave system known in the world. We bought 2 tours for a day : the New Entrance (Frozen Niagara) tour and Historic tour. See our cool pictures!

Experience Mammoth Cave!

After the 2nd tour ended at 3 pm, we decided to spent the rest of our day having lunch in KFC BUFFET =) Only $6.99 you can enjoy as many chicken as possible. I only eat 6 chickens and I gave up.

Kentucky Fried Chicken Buffet for lunch

After spending an hour+ for lunch we headed back to Cleveland. I drove for 2 hours before Ameek took over. She drove amazingly fast (above 90 mph) such that we arrived within 5 1/2 hours. Good job all drivers!

St Patrick's Day @ West Virginia

2007-03-17T23:56:00.000+08:00

It was less than a week before the spring officially announced, yet the snow was everywhere. Perhaps it was a bad idea to travel in extreme weather, but STILL six of us managed to reach West Virginia within 6 hours. We gathered at lobby by 8 o'clock and waited half an hour for unreachable Kevin. I called him couple times and no one picked up the phone. Sorry buddy, we left you behind!

Look ... what a wonderful scene...

The journey was not easy at all. We traveled along mountainous and snowy roads, and the petrol drained so fast. But KS and Xinen are a good driver. They drove along the way to our destination: Seneca Rocks.

Maryland state?? Oooo nooo

After few hours drive, we were shocked by the sign: "Welcome to Maryland". Hey, we the minutes, we supposed to be in West Virginia. Not Maryland. We decided to stop for a while to check whether we were heading to correct direction. KS parked at MacDonald, and therefore we had our lunch there. MacDonald again... Did I mention that we had our breakfast at MacDonald?

MacDonald for lunch

Turn out, we were indeed heading to a correct way. After GPS-ing for local attraction, we found Seneca Rocks! Yippeee ... One hour plus to go! To make sure we had enough petrol, we pumped our cars.

See how HAPPY Sebastian was at the petrol station

One hour later, we stopped again .. to ... TAKE PICTURES. What else? Hehe. The open space at the road side was AMAZING. Regardless how cold it was and how shaky our legs (and my tripod) were, we managed to take nice pictures.

See how nice it is?

We finally reached Seneca Rocks around 4.30 pm. The first thing we did was to check out the visitor center. But, unfortunately, it was CLOSE. Ooooh nooo ... End up, we just went to the local shop and took pictures with Seneca Rocks as a background. I brought my camera remote along with me, so ... we played with it until we agreed to move on before getting dark.

Local Gift Shop - Local people and local bear =)

Us, Seneca Rocks, and my lovely remote =)

Series of Jumping Poses

Time to go back! Actually, we were a bit upset 'cos we drove so far only for few pictures of Seneca Rocks (1.5GB consider few?). But, when we drove back, we saw Blackwater Falls sign. So we gave it a try. The scene was AWESOME. If you ever watched "The world of Narnia", you will probably understand how cool the place is.

The place was closed, but the adventure continued ...

Cool picture ... love it so much

KS and Erwin ... the red color blend well with the snow

W V for West Virginia - except for KS =)

Since I love this place so much, I decided to change my blog header! Blackwater Falls, I'll never forget!

Blackwater Falls - Panoramic view merged with Photoshop

It was getting dark and therefore we hurried to ... find a place for dinner. We stopped at the nearby restaurant. And since today is a St. Patrick's Day, we ordered a mug of GREEN BEER. Actually, it is only beer with green coloring. Nothing special. As for dinner, we shared plenty of chicken wings (chesapeake, honey BBQ, and garlic flavour) and fried mushroom. The chicken wings are nice!

The 'famous' Green Beer

We finished our dinner at 9 pm. Outside the restaurant, there was heavy snow. Me and Kelvin took turn to drive and arrived safely by 2 a.m. Overall, the trip is fun and interesting, especially the Narnia thing.

Weekend at Detroit

2007-03-10T22:12:00.000+08:00

Detroit, Michigan here we come... Our friendly travel agent, Xinen, once again planned our itinerary. Well done! Since Detroit is just 3 hours from Cleveland, we gathered at the lobby at 8 am. This time, Scott, our US colleague joined us to the MotorCity. The weather was nice. Oooh, Thanks God it's Spring! Wohooo, 80 F (almost the same as Singapore's).

IMAX at Henry Ford Museum

After couple stops at MacDonald and petrol station, we arrived at Henry Ford Museum by noon. Wikipedia mentioned Henry Ford museum as the nation's "largest" indoor-outdoor history museum complex. We kinda hungry back then, therefore we went for lunch at the museum's Michigan Cafe. The food was ok, standard western style (actually, I thought Sebastian would make a stop at the nearest Arby's but I was wrong hehe ...) .

By the end of the time, NONE of us went into the indoor museum to see the cars. "Cheappooo ... hehe". Instead, we ended up watching Deep Sea 3D IMAX movie =__=

IMAX at Henry Ford Museum - My lunch at the Michigan Cafe

Eastern Market

Cos the IMAX movie started at 5.40 pm, we went out to ... EASTERN market. Yup, a market. It looks like PASAR MALAM in Singapore.

Posing outside eastern market

As you can see from the pictures below, the market was crowded. In fact, some of us bought groceries here, including me hehe (garlic, carrots, a box of grapes, peaches). Cheaper and fresher ... !!

The market situation -- courtesy of XLEE

A box of grapes for 10 bucks. Good job, Erwin!!

Poultry & Meat and Honey - Fresh from the cars by XLEE

The eastern market ...

General Motor Headquarters

After eastern market, we went to GM HQ to see car show. Hehe ... it's free. Therefore we spent couple hours there.

KS and XLEE as my models

Me & the car at GM World -- Me & 3D Glasses at IMAX

GreekTown - New Parthenon Restaurant

After watching the movie, we were looking a place for dinner. Hungry ... oooh no traffic-jam. Finally, we stopped at Greektown but no luck ... every places were fully packed. Dinner time, cold, long queues ... After wandering from places to places we decided to have our dinner at Greek Resto called New Parthenon. We waited for 30 mins long.

XLEE, Sbass, Erwin, CY waiting 'patiently' outside the restaurant

"We want to order menus which come with flame" quoted someone in the resto. The waitress replied "Saganaki Opa and Flamed Greek Sausage are come with flame". Saganaki Opa sounds like Japanese food, but it's not. It is kasseri cheese fried in olive oil and served as appetizer.

'Flammable' cheese and sausages

Spot the differences!

Look at KS! He was doing same poses for all pictures. So funny ...

Erwin and Sbass -- taken by Xinen

Scott - Children ... dun try this at home. Eating money is not good!

My Souvlaki - A small shish kebob, served with rice and vegetable ... yummy

Chin Yong and Miss Wang

That's all for today. Another weekend ended ... means ... back to office on Monday. What next for the following weekend? Stay tune!

Xinen Bdae Eve

2007-03-08T10:44:00.000+08:00

Today is Xinen bdae. "Hey guys what should be a proper gift for her?" I said to others near office pantry during lunch time. Hmmm ... A&F gift card. Deal! So Kevin and I went off earlier to Beachwood Mall for Abercrombie gift card. I bet Xinen knew this gonna happen since she asked "Where you guys going?" and Kevin answered "Buying men clothes blah3x ..." Lame excused hahaha ...

The girls and their silly pose

For the cake and candle, we bought a nice Chocolate Ice Cream Cake from GiantEagle. Better than our home-made cake! Peace peace ...
The plan continued by gathering everyone in my place and asked her to come up to watch Death Note 2 - The Last Name (even though I didn't have one yet). Sorry Xinen hehe ...

Then as usual, we sang a bdae song, cut the cake lalala, and took a ton of pictures. Yup, with my new IR Remote Control, we can let the camera take our foolish poses. We did really have fun with the remote that night. Good job remote!

Series of our group pictures

Once again, happe bdae Xinen. Hope you enjoy your gift card!

Back to Cleveland

2007-02-25T23:05:00.000+08:00

After 2 weeks staying in Jakarta, it is again time to depart. Back to Cleveland means a-day-flight. Yeah, 24 hours flight would drive you crazy! A day before I had my luggage filled with food (Chinese new year cookies), new clothes, medicine, MILO, etc etc. At Soekarno-Hatta Airport, there were long queues! Yeah, I met a lot of NTU graduated friends there. My cousin was there too. Same flight. Haha. This time, my flight with SIA was fantastic. Since I am now a Krisflyer Golden member, people treated me better than ever. My luggage now is a Raffles Class Priority. Cool yah!

Transit 6-8 hours in Changi was not a good idea. I only spent a little time to sleep since my "neighbours" were too noisy. I waited until the United counter was opened and until Sebastian arrived. It was around 5 AM. The five-hour-flight to Hongkong departed at 7.55 AM. This is the best part. The United personal upgraded my seat to Business class for free. Erwin had the ticket upgraded as well. Lucky us! Star Alliance Gold membership rocks!!

Look how comfortable we were at the business class cabin!

Being business class passenger, we were treated well. Haha so happy. "Mr Liong, can we ..." "Mr Che-mer-leng, oops do I pronounce correctly?" Yeah, my name is kinda hard for them to pronounce. Erwin's name is easier. But, I did enjoy this flight. If only, they upgraded our seat on Hongkong-Chicago trip.... Yeah keep dreaming!

This awesome picture taken from the business-class seat +)

The flight to Chicago was a total disaster. Economy class seat, 18 hours flight ... tired!! Lucky time went fast (hmmm not really lor ...). But anyway, we arrived safely at Chicago. The immigration took us more than half an hour. Chicago was really crowded since a lot of flights were delayed b'cos of the bad weather. Yah, almost forgot about snow and cold weather after staying couple weeks in Asia.

The real problem came after this. I saw at my flight schedule, and realised I should fly earlier than my colleagues. Ooooh no ... I ran from terminal 1 to 5, tried sooo hard to get into the next flight. The customer service queue was sooo long that I could not manage to catch the next flight. Hmm ... I was alone there while Sebas and Erwin flew away to Cleveland. Poor me...

The next flight was at 5 pm and there were more than hundred peoples on the waiting-list. Oooh crap... How about me???? The problem was United canceled the-three-pm flight. After waiting for 2 hours, I talked to the customer service to let me in to the five-pm-flight. "Ok ... I'll put you in the waiting list." I replied "I have waited blah3x ... hours ...." "If I told you I have Star Alliance Gold membership, would it help?" He replied "Yes, it does". Then finally, I managed to fly on time and reached Cleveland by 7.30 pm. Thanks for my colleagues for being passion waiting for me hihi!! You guys rocks!

Oooo no ... other problem came again. My luggage was not there. I spoke to the United representative that my luggage would be at cleveland for another few hours and she said they will deliver to my address in the following day. Hiuhhhh ... Now, I can relieve ...

Back to Jakarta on CNY Trip

2007-02-16T23:36:00.000+08:00

Hurray, back to Jakarta! Finally, after a year and half!!
Guess what? I returned in a correct time. No more flood, no more electricity breakdown ... Being spoilt kid. Hmmm, what else missing? While staying couple days in my relative HDB, I managed to have "Shio bak peng" a.k.a roasted-pork rice, "Wanton mie" a.k.a wanton noodle. That's just the beginning.

An eve of New Year is the time to gather with my family for BIG dinner. My mum prepared the menu from the morning. Noodle (compulsory), Fish (nian nian you yu), Breaded Pork-shrimp-Fill (Dimsum style yummy), "Bak Keng" (Hookien delicacy), Spicy vegetarian Rendang (Indonesian delicacy), and Ham-Shrimp roll are the menu. Taste awesome! We had a good evening, except my sister was in Australia. She was not able to return 'cos she was working on her PR status there. May be next time we'll meet.

Chinese New Year Eve - The Big Dinner with my family

On the first day of new year, we were staying at home while waiting for my relatives from both father and mother sides to come. That's because my father is the oldest son. As a tradition of Chinese new year, wearing red is a must.

My cousin family from mother side - Red red ...

I love the picture above. Nice shoot everyone!! My father side aunt and uncle came the following hours later. Here are the pictures!

Uncle, Aunt, and their families

The second day was our turn to visit others. In the morning, we went to my aunt and uncles houses. Even though there was no more flood threat, the water level was still high. It was almost at the same level as the street.

Picture of the houses along river bank. Perhaps creek, not river

Chinese New year is always unique with its cookies. Pineapple tarts, "kacang" (various peanuts), "lapis legit" (layered cake -yummy), and other kueh-kueh. I brought some of my mother-made cookies back to Cleveland and my friends finished 5 boxes within few days. Chin Yong said "How if I setup a store in Singapore and let your mother cookies sold" Haha, thanks Chin Yong, my mother took it as compliment.

After visiting my relatives, we headed towards Taman Anggrek mall (one of my favourite malls in Jakarta). This year is amazing. They even shown Chinese "wayang" (opera) in the public. My big sister wanted to take picture with the actors but she didn't manage to do so. Poor sister ... hehe =)

Chinese wayang Opera at Taman Anggrek mall

Dinner was the main reason we went to the mall. I told them, I wanted to go for Dimsum. Haha, I was delicious!!! In-expensive (compared to Singapore and US currency)!! Huang Ting is the name of the restaurant (thanks for the recommendation my friends!).

I did enjoy my time in Jakarta. Besides, Chinese new year gathering, I managed to meet some of olddddd friends. Having lunch, dinner, buying DVDs, attending Catholic seminar by Bo Sanchez, getting new clothes from my sister, hearing the priest singing Chinese song during sunday mass cum chinese new year mass are amazing. Thanks God for these opportunities!!

Snowboarding @ Boston Mills

2007-01-20T23:36:00.000+08:00

It is getting colder this week. That means it is a SNOWBOARDING time! Look how excited we are at Boston Mills. It's my first time to snowboard ... but I do survived!

Ultimate Ski and Snowboard-ing warriors

Canada Trip [Dec 29, 2006 - Jan 1, 2007]

2006-12-31T23:18:00.000+08:00

Day 1 @ Montreal

>> Montreal - China Town <<

>> Montreal - Bio Dome <<

Day 2 @ Montreal

>> Montreal - Snowy Morning <<

>> Montreal - Insectarium <<

>> Montreal at night <<

Day 3 @ Montreal

>> Montreal - Botanic Garden <<

>> Montreal - Notre Dame de Montreal <<

>> New Year eve at Mount Royal <<

>> Casino de Montreal <<

Day 4 @ Ottawa

>> Ottawa - Capitol Building <<

>> Ottawa - New Year Buffet Lunch <<

Christmas in Cleveland

2006-12-27T23:28:00.000+08:00

Xmas Eve @ St Claire Church
Christmas is a special day 'cos it is a Jesus birthday. Happe bdae! This year is different for me. Far from my home town (and it is not "white xmas" .. yeah no snow, but it was raining)!
After having several choir practices in the church lately, we were ready to perform on the Xmas Eve. We sang very great together with the congregation. The bells rang beautifully and blended well with the choir. Hihi. Nice job guys! I made this xmas card for the choir of St Claire.

On a Xmas Day
No one except me, Sebastian, and Kevin were in Cleveland on the Christmas day. Today we celebrate xmas together with Lynette family. She is one of test team managers. We brought Godiva chocolate as a gift. We reached the place at 2 pm. Most of the time, I played with the kids while waiting for the family dinner. They are gorgeous and very active. Haha... Kevin said I'm so good with kids.
Anyway, the food was great! My favourite is the roasted beef. Thanks Lynette for the invitation. Nice to celebrate xmas with you.

Xmas lighting at Nela Park
Two-day after Xmas, the office is still "empty". So quite! Suddenly, Ameek with her classic laugh came. "Hey, you are back!" I said. "How about going out tonight for xmas lighting?" I contd. Deal! Me, Kevin, Sebastian, and Ameek went out to Nela Park. The park was full with xmas decoration. Thanks for GE Electronics for the design.

Ooo xmas tree Ooo xmas tree

Rudolf, Santa, lalalala ...

The four of us... hey who took the pic? My tripod of course

It was so cold outside. We hurried our journey to downtown for another xmas lighting. The public square was sparkling, but we didn;t have enough time there since we needed to rush back. Why? We gonna watch "Night in Museum". Pretty fun, entertaining, though it was a bit boring in the beginning part.

Merry xmas guys!!

Xmas Party

2006-12-17T22:25:00.000+08:00

Before Xiong Sheng and Andrian return to Singapore, we should have a xmas party! Moreover, some of us will be away for vacation on Christmas period. So we decided to have a potluck dinner.

Today Menu!!

Today menu:
- Indo Curry + Nasi Lemak -> me and Sebastian
- Beehon, Popcorn, Fruit -> Kok Song and Chin Yong
- Pork Rib, Har Gao (Chinese Dumpling) and snacks -> Ying Lun and Xin en
- Veggie, Cake -> Wang Jiao and Ameek
- Grill Chicken Leg -> Xiong Shen and Kevin
- Drinks -> Erwin
- Snacks -> Ching Yuh
- Prata -> Raju

The party started at 5.30 pm; ended at 9 pm. We all have fun!! Here some pics of the party.

Hurry, grab it while you can!

See, all guys gathered around the food

Kevin - "What is that??" Ameek - "Of course cake!"

Guess what movie is this?

White Elephant - Give eXchange

Classical Group Picture

Florida day 7 - Last day

2006-11-28T12:29:00.000+08:00

The days in Florida ran pretty fast, and we were now heading back to Orlando. It took around 4 hours to reach the airport. Oooopsss, we forgot to pump the petrol! Hiyaa, it took additional 30 minutes to find a petrol station and gas up our car.

We had our lunch at the airport food court. The chinese food that I ordered was standard and expensive (as usual). While waiting for the plane to depart at 4 pm, we went to several gift shops such as Disney, Universal, Seaworld, etc. I bought Disney thingy for my cousins.

We arrived at Cleveland Hopkins airport around 9.30 pm after one hour transit at Memphis. Kok Song and Ching Yong were really unlucky with Hertz car rental as they accidentally rented our cars. After going through some administrative procedures, we were given new cars. Guess what? We reached our apartment at 11+

Thanks God, we arrived safely. Days in Florida were amazing, relaxing, and fun(except last 2 days hehe). Back to Cleveland means Back to work again. Hehe.

Florida day 6

2006-11-27T23:14:00.000+08:00

Key Largo
Not much excitement today. Key Largo, the northernmost island of the Florida Keys island is a good place to scuba diving and sports-fishing. But we won't do those extreme things. We gonna snorkeling.

We arrived at the Key Largo before 10 o'clock, bought our lunch at Wendy's, and waited at the place where the boat departed. Together with other couples, we boarded at noon, and headed to a deep sea. And since we were on the boat, I didn't bring my lovely camera. But we bought the underwater camera which was rarely used. Hehe.

Once the boat stopped in the middle of the sea, we wore the snorkeling gear and jumped into the sea. But ... I didn't make it. Suddenly, I felt sea-sick and passed out. Wuahaha ... I just laid on the boat for at least an hour. Horrible!!! Arrggh ...

But anyway, I didn't miss too much. Chin Yong said he saw few fishes and took few pics of them. Kok Song and Sebastian puked after snorkeling, while Erwin and Ching yuh survived through out the trip. Well, I didn't enjoy this 3-hour trip at all. Hehe too bad.

Key West
It was 4 pm and we continued our journey to Key West. While Erwin drove, almost all of us slept, including me. Ooh, I felt sick since I was too hungry! When we arrived at the downtown Key West, It was around 8 pm. We missed sunset!!!

We tried to find a good yet cheap restaurant for dinner. At the end of the time, we were seated at some seafood restaurant. I ordered seafood platter combo and was not able to finish it since they put wasabi on it. Arrrgh, horrible horrible. I should sing " You have a bad day ... lalala ..."

Florida Day 5 - Everglades, Viscaya, and Miami Beach

2006-11-26T23:23:00.000+08:00

Everglades
Today morning we went to Gator Park @ Everglades. We gonna see Alligators! Interesting yach!!

We reached everglades at 10 am. A lot of heavy-biker gathered there for some reasons. I dunno. Hehe. Anyway, we boarded the air boat together with a group of ~10 people. The tour guide was the one who ran the engine. We wished to see a bunch of alligators swimming in the swamp, but unfortunately they were to shy to show their faces =/. Hmmm, at least we saw one small gator. Take a look at my pics!

Everglades - Gator Air boat Tour

Viscaya
Continuing our journey, we visited Viscaya museum and garden at South Miami. The museum consists of Villa Vizcaya, its grounds, and the collections. The gardens were extremely beautiful.

Amazing view of Viscaya Gardens

Viscaya mansion was designed by the famous architect F. Burrall Hoffman. This Italian-style mansion contains 34 rooms decorated with 16-19th century furnishings and decorations. Amazziiing!!! Unfortunately we were not allowed to take a picture while touring inside this huge mansion.

Miami Beach
We had our lunch at Clevelander, Miami Beach. Yeah ... the road along beach was crowded with pplz. I guess it was a lunch time. We chose Clevelander 'cos it sounded familiar to us. Haha. While we were waiting for our lunch, there was a babe riding a cool bike in front of us. A guys sitting besides us started shouting wo0h0o!! Hehe... Was fun being there.

Pictures of Miami Beach

We spent at the beach for several hours. There was a beach party at that time. Not sure what kind of party it was. Along the beach, there were 2 cute and attractive Japanese girls. Hmmm, but they were accompanied with 2 big angmo guys. Hehe, forget about it guys!

Miami Beach - Courtesy of Sebastian

That's all for today!

Florida Day 4 - Kennedy Space Center and Go Orlando

2006-11-25T23:38:00.000+08:00

Kennedy Space Center
Today is a Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Go Orlando day. To reach this complex, we drove about two hours. FYI, Kennedy Space Center is the NASA space vehicle launch facility (spaceport) located between Miami and Jacksonville, Florida. We arrived at KSC Visitor Complex at 10 am.

Rocket Garden @ KSC

There was a story behind the picture above. Ching Yong once asked a Mexican lady to take our picture with these rockets as a background. But I wasn't sure whether the lady didn't understand English or didn't understand how to use digital camera. As a result, the picture above was taken. Yeah, only the rockets, none of us was in the picture. Wuahaha ... so lame.

We started our day there by waiting for the bus which will eventually bring us to several places.

[KSC] Pictures taken while waiting for the bus

On the bus, we were guided by the driver about the complex. Basically, we were touring around the grounds of Launch complex 39, and the Apollo-Saturn V Center.

Vehicle Assembly Building

First stop was The observation gantry which provides clear views of both launch pads and all of Kennedy Space Center property.

Launch Complex 39B with Discovery shuttle from the observation gantry

Next, the bus brought us to Apollo-Saturn V Center which is a large museum features a restored Saturn V launch vehicle and other space related exhibits, including an Apollo capsule. Two theaters allow us to take parts of the Apollo launching and landing program.

Inside the firing room during Apollo launch simulation

Saturn V launch vehicle ... huge yah

We spent there until 4.30 pm and continued our short trip to nearby Astronaut Hall of Fame. It looks like a science center to me.

Go Orlando Card
We reached back to Orlando 2 hours later (around 7pm) and stopped at Titanic - The experience. Basically, it is a place with over than 200 artifacts and historic treasures of famous Titanic ship which sank in 1912 because of collision with an iceberg.

The ticket to the Titanic

Group picture in front of the iceberg and basement of Titanic

The grand staircase

The grand staircase was so cool. It looks the same as the one shown in the movie.

First class Parlor

Oooh I knew this place! It was a place where Jack Dawson drew a picture of naked Rose DeWitt Bukater. Hehe, I remember =)

Our next destinations were Wonderworks and Ripley Believe it or not.

Wonderworks and Ripley Believe it or not

The flight simulation at the Wonderworks made me wanna puke. Arrgh, pity on me!
At the end of the day, we spent our night at the arcade center nearby our hotel playing Go Kart and Arcade machines.

We then continued our trip to Miami. We reached there by 6 o'clock in the morning. Ooooh tired!! We slept for a while before continuing our day in Miami.

Florida Trip day 3 - Seaworld

2006-11-24T23:57:00.000+08:00

Another morning in Florida, hurray! I woke up pretty early this morning and ppl were still on the bed sleeping. "Hey, wake up guys!! It's Seaworld day," I said.
We reached there before 9 am, and the place is so peaceful (not as crowded as Disney).

Chin yong and the map

Where should we go first?? Chin Yong, Erwin, and Ching Yuh stared at Seaworld map and started planning our day.

Both disney and Seaworld are full of Xmas decoration. Look how big the xmas tree and mistletoe.

[Orlando, Seaworld] Huge Mistletoe

[Orlando, Seaworld] Xmas tree at the entrance gate

Penguin Encountered
A bunch of penguins were there playing around (behind the glass of course). Nothing except penguins here.

Sea Lion & Otter Stadium
This stadium was full of pplz. The show is about Pirates and his missing treasure. There was a funny clown before the show started. He kept making fun the late audiences. Good show!!

Sea Lion and Otter Show

Believe - Shamu show
This stadium is at least 3x times bigger than Sea Lion stadium. We hardly to get a good spot when we reached there. FYI, this show is the center attraction of Seaworld.

Shamu - Believe show

"Believe" features a video of a boy inspired by an orca who grows up to be a Shamu trainer. He then chooses a young audience member asking of his desired occupation and gives him a carved Shamu necklace so that the child can "Believe".

The show was quite disappointed since the Shamu didn't co-operate well with the trainer instruction.

Nautilus Theater - Odyssea
Odyssea is a non-traditional circus that combines high-flying acrobatic performances, delightful comedy, whimsical costumes, dramatic music and fantastic special effects within a spectacular set themed as an underwater fantasy world.

Few of us slept almost entire show. Well, maybe we are not into acrobatic thingy.

Odyssea @ Nautilus Theater

Shark Encountered
After having hotdog (again) for lunch, we went to Shark Encountered where we saw various underwater life. The place was fully packed. Personally, not really enjoy it. Too many pplz lar.

Shark Encountered

Whale and Dolphin Theater - Blue Horizon
This show was entertaining. The dolphins, parrots, whales and the trainers were amazing. I called it the best show of the day.

Blue Horizon show

After the show, we split 'cos Sebastian, Erwin, Ching Yuh, and Kok Song wanted to ride Kraken rollercoaster, but Ching Yong chose to stay away from it. And as for me, I went back to car park to get my telephoto lens.

While searching for the others, I went to several places such as: Dolphin Cove, Manatee Rescue, and Alligators Lair. Check out some of my cool pictures.

Dolphins, Alligators and Manatees

Pets Ahoy!
We met at 5 pm for Pets Ahoy show. The show featured cats and dogs, birds, and even a pig. Almost of these fabulous stars were rescued from animal shelters.

We could hear beautiful Christmas carol for a far while queuing for Pets Ahoy. Nice!

Christmas Carol performance

The show started around 5.15 pm and the place was fully packed. We seated at the different spot. Sitting next to me is a young boy. He asked me if I am a photographer. Hihi my big lens looked cool yah ... Anyway, the next 25 minutes was fun and touching. The pets were very talented!!

Another Believe - Shamu show
This show was much better than the previous shamu show. The music, lighting and the ambience blended well with the show.

Surf on top of shamu ... so cool!

Believe it!

The fountain show ended our day in Seaworld.

[Part 2] Florida Trip day 2 - DisneyWorld

2006-11-23T23:24:00.000+08:00

Frontier Land

We continued our journey to Splash Mountain after having lunch. Splash Mountain is an attraction that is based on the 1946 Disney film Song of the South. We rode the boat which brought us to the top of the "mountain" and ended with a finale of a steep drop into a Briar Patch (that is why it's called SPLASH).

Next: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. To dry out our clothes, we went to this ride which kinda crowded and the queue was around an hour. This indoor-outdoor roller coaster was pretty mild compared to (again) Millennium, Cedar Point. I guess there is no ride scarier than one in Cedar Point.

Pictures of the ride taken from Liberty Belle Riverboat

Adventure Land
Jungle Cruise was our next destination. This classic boat ride with a funny tour guide brought us to the jungle areas of the world, such as those found near the Amazon River and Asia. Pretty fun being there!!

Jungle Cruise tour boat

Well, we almost rode all the rides by that time, so we decided to take a picture with at least one of Disney Characters. And aladdin was just in front of us. The queue was full of kids and we were there. Fun hah?

Princess and Aladdin

The group picture was taken by my camera. And because stupid Windows Camera Wizard doesn't recognize picture in RAW format, I lost all my RAW format pics while downloading it to Erwin's laptop. Arrrggghhh!!

Liberty Square
While waiting for the fireworks (which will be held at night), we spent a while boarding Liberty Belle Riverboat. The ride was around 30 mins.

Waiting for the boat to board

At 5.30 pm, everyone gathered before Cinderella Castle for some dance performance. Goofy, Donald, Mickey, Minnie, PeterPan, Captain Hook, etc were there.

Yeah .. go Donald .. go Goofy .. go dance!!

Dinner Time
For our dinner, we have our own Thanksgiving Turkey Legs!! Yippee!! Look how big it is! I could not even finish it.

My $5 turkey legs .. Happe Thanksgiving!!

Remember... Dreams Come True
While waiting for the fireworks at 9 pm, me and Chin Yong went back to our car to get my camera gear. Tripod, extra Compact Flash, battery plus my big Canon L-Series lens. Others went again to musical theater, played carrousel, etc. It took almost 45 minutes to reach back Cinderella Castle (kinda tired by now). But I have enough time to setup my camera. Here the pictures of the fireworks

Cinderella Castle at Night

Remember... Dreams Come True Fireworks!! Awesome isn't it?

Spectral Magic Parade
The last show of the day was Spectral Magic Parade. The road was full of Disney characters which accompanied by wonderful lighting.

Taken while waiting for the parade ... Love this pic!

The sparkling parade ended our day in Magical Kingdom

[Part 1] Florida Trip day 2 - DisneyWorld

2006-11-23T22:30:00.000+08:00

Happe thanksgiving, guys!!! FYI, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November to give thanks, traditionally to God, for the things one has at the end of the harvest season.

Disney - Magical Kingdom Entrance

Ticket and map to Magical Kingdom (hey nice shoot CY!!)

OK, contd on the trip. Today is Magical Kingdom - Disneyworld day. Hurray ... !! Although we are quite adult-enough, we still wanna go to Disneyworld. Yes, indeed when we arrived there at 8 o'clock, this place has been "bombarded" by people from various ages. Once the gates were opened, we ran to catch the Ferry Boat which brought us to TomorrowLand entrance.

Chip&Dale and Cinderella Castle

Tommorow Land
We went to 4 places in this section. First, Stitch's Great Escape!

Entrance to Stitch's Great Escape!

It is a seated presentation with Audio-Animatronics about becoming a guard for the Galactic Federation. Via cool teleport room, the Galatic prisoners are transferred, including the great Stitch. He manage to escape and cause a chaos; attacking us with canon laser, spit us with chili-hotdog smell. Interesting but not as fun as other rides.

Next is one of Disney's famous ride: Space Mountain. It is a indoor rollercoaster with a outer-space scenery. Fast, dark, and cool.

Me and Chin Yong - to Space Mountain

Comparing to Millenium ride @ Cedar Point, Space Mountain is totally less scary, yet it's fun and enjoyable. I hardly opened my eyes while riding Millenium, but I opened my eyes for this ride. Cool!!

Tomorrowland Indy Speedway is our next destination. This Nascar-GoKarting race is not as fast as you think. Yeah ... it's Disney not a NASCAR stadium, as expected.

See how slow the ride was ... I could even take Kok Song's pic while riding the car

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger rocks!! At the outerspace, we boarded Omnimover space vehicle with two laser pistols and a joystick attached to it and started shooting any target to accumulate points. Hihi ... While pplz busy shooting with their guns, I got my camera ready for sure.

Look how fun issit shooting at the outerspace

Fantasy Land
Well, we contd our journey to Fantasy Land, but we skipped almost all attractions there since it's kinda childish. Yeah you know: Alice in wonderland, Dumbo, Small world, Winnie the Pooh, etc.

Fantasy land

Look how cool the word "Thx God" message formed in the blue sky

We decided to go into Mickey's PhilharMagic theatre to watch 3-D movie featuring Donald and Mickey.

Handsome looking guys with 3-D glasses wuaahaha

I loveeee this show a lot. Donald and mickey and their orchestra look alive. Amazing!! In fact, some of us went to this place twice later today.

Camera can't capture 3D animated images wuahaha ...

The funny thing was when looking at pplz grabbing the scattered "food", flying music notes or touching Donald 'cos the 3D effects made the objects appear closer to the audience eyes.

Liberty Square
Before having hotdog as lunch, we went to Haunted Mansion. Sound spooky hah?

The entrance of Haunted Mansion

Make a Dream Come True Parade
We spent our lunch along the road to Cinderella castle while waiting for all Disney characters to show up at "Make a Dream Come True" Parade.

Classic - Modern Mickey

Tigger, Alice, and Eeyore

Alladin and friends

Peter Pan, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast, The Mermaid

Donald and Chip&Dale

Cool picture taken at the end of the parade

to be contd ...

Florida Trip Day 1

2006-11-22T23:13:00.000+08:00

Today, again ... woke up pretty early in the morning as we are approaching our Florida trip. Yipee!! This trip, I will be travelling with Sebastian, Erwin, Kok Song, Chin Yong, and Ching Yuh. We arrived at the airport around 5 after having some problem with Hertz rental car as we can't have our car park at there garage for 6 days. Well, problem solved after she called the manager.

The plane boarded on time at 6.30. While transiting at Detroit airport, I took some pictures of us, including Kok Song's new SLR-Like Camera. Good camera, although a little bit slower than mine. Hehe.

Detroit airport - 8 to 9 AM

After sleeping for several hours on the plane, we finally reached Orlando, Florida by noon. Hurray!! It looks like Singapore. The trees are always green. The weather are pretty hot (around 70F). Once we got our luggages, we went to the Alamo car rental and got our Grand Caravan plus GPS! A huge car which is good for us.

Ready to GO!! First destination -> LUNCH!! Yeah .. freakin hungry! Four dollars all you can eat pizza is not bad, Considering we are at Florida! After that, We were rushing to get our Orlando Go card and head to hotel for a while before going to Arabian Night show for dinner.

Go Orlando Card and Arabian Night show

Arabian Night
Arabian Night is a dinner show that bring fairtale to life on horseback. Today show is about a arabian princess waiting for the prince to come back on the christmas day. Yeah ... xmas yaah. Isn't it to early? The horses are very well groom, smart, and the show is amazing. 2 thumbs up for the show!

Arabian Night - the horses, princess, santa, cowboy, prince, etc

After the show ended, we went back to the hotel for a while. Realize it is too early to end the day, we went to the arcade center nearby. Some of us playing go kart, some playing the arcade machine, and erwin passed out because he drank too much at the dinner time. Poor Erwin huhu...

Anyway it is an enjoyable day. Orlando, love you!!

Incredible Hulk - Universal Studio [Left]
Journey back to Quality Suites Hotel [Right]

A day before Florida Trip

2006-11-21T21:00:00.000+08:00

Today, I woke up early for DRIVING test. After intensive maneuverability and driving practices, I make up my mind that I'm going to pass the test.

Chat log (PC -> me, OF -> officer)
OF: "I would ask you to sound the horn, followed by turning on your left and right signal"
PC: "Yes, maam. Tooot... [sound of horn], click ... click "
OF: "Good ... very good. Now go forward, steer to the left of the point marker."

(the track looks like ...)

PC: (well this should be easy ... I have practice this thousand times ^_^)
OF: "Now straighten your car and back through the box and come to a stop with your front bumper even with the two rear markers and parallel with the course."
PC: "OK... (getting nervous ... ooo no almost hit the box marker)"
PC: "Maam, can I repeat? (Heart beats a little bit faster)"
OF: "Hmm ok... "
PC: "Thanks..."

Well, I told it would be easy... Wuahaha, anyway I passed the first test. Now the second test i.e. Road test.

OF: "Good, now go to the road, turn left, right, ..."
PC: "Feeling cold, officer ... I could turn the AC off"
OF: "Nahh ... just drive"
...
OF: "Remember your speed..."
OF: "What is that? Watch out .. squirrel"
OF: "Ok... park in front of the license office and get your LICENSE"

Wuahhhhh ....... Jumping like crazy ... naah just kidding

Yup, it took about 10 mins to get my license. Pretty fast, almost no queue in the morning. Total deduction score: 8 from 1st test, 15 from 2nd test. Yeah, quite critical, 2 more points to fail. Huahaha... Thx officer.

Now I'm offically a driver. Yeah ... I feel good ...

Kevin b'dae

2006-11-19T22:45:00.000+08:00

Today is kevin b'dae eve. Within a short time, we were able to prepare a surprise. As usual, we have drinks, snacks, and xinen-made-cake. We met at my place first before going to kevin's place. He said "wow .. I never have this kind of party for many years". Glad, we were there ritez!! Wuahaha ...
OK Kevin, here is a bunch of pictures taken during your bdae party.

People at Kevin's party

Kevin bdae cake ... Hey who is that?

Kevin bdae cake + drinks

LOVELY group pic?

THUMBS UP Group pic

Weekend at Pittsburgh

2006-11-04T23:39:00.000+08:00

Silent Night

2006-11-02T23:09:00.000+08:00

30 mins at the balcony
Weather forecast said it's gonna snow tonight. And it is! It's freakin cold outside, and freeze me out when I take couple pictures of carpark from my balcony. These are the best I could take.

Carpark - cold cold night

The carpark and the trees behind

Carpark in the morning covered by white snow

In the Office
Today will be a last day for my Singapore Managers staying at Cleveland. And therefore, taking a group picture after the meeting is a must!

RA ABC LOGIX at the conference room

Trick or Treat

2006-10-31T23:19:00.000+08:00

Tonight is a trick or treat night where children proceed from house to house, asking for treats such as candy with the question, "Trick or treat?" Trick-or-treating is done in costume and is one of the main traditions of Halloween. Unfortunately, none of children came to our apartment. So sad! I did prepare Kit-kat and candies for them though.

There is no choir practice at the church tonight, so me and Andrian ended up wandering around the church complex and took the pic of houses. Interesting ritez! They do spend the efforts to decorate their house.

My Bdae Eve

2006-10-28T10:37:00.000+08:00

Arrrgggghhh .... Haunted house!! Today should be a scary day cos we are going to Bloodview Haunted House. Wuhuuu ... Yeah, you know, halloween season. Every where are full with halloween stuff!

Going together to a hounted house was fun, not scary (blame Ameek 'cos she kept laughing when we were there). It was a cold night. In fact, it was snowing a bit when we drove there. But luckily it stopped. Here some pictures taken by Erwin and Xinen. I didn't bring my camera 'cos actually taking photos are not allowed.

Icy road and Bloodview haunted house

Haunted house staff and us!! Sssscarry costume yah!

Anoootttherrr picture with the staff

My bdae eve
At 10 PM, my frenz knocked my door and surprised me with a cake. We had almost all pplz here except Raju and my managers. Hehe, it's ok. I'm fortunate to know you guys!! The party started by blowing the candle, followed by testimonial from my frenz.

Home-made bdae cake. Special thx to Ameek!

Well, they really made me drunk. They could always make a bunch of excuses to make me drink every single time I said something. End up, I drank 4 1/2 cans of beer.

Kok Song, Andrian, and Sebastian

They gave me a cooking book. They expect me to cook for them? Wuahaha ... anyway, the Chinese cooking book is great. Full color pages and illustrations! It's just perfect. Time to improve my cooking skill. Thx guys!

A bunch of drunken masters ... Look at their faces

The party ended by midnight and some pplz left before group photo session.

Group pic

It is a fun day, although I woke up several times at night vomiting and having diarrhea. Wuahaha ...

A Day in Washington

2006-10-26T22:36:00.000+08:00

Today, I woke up at 6 o'clock in the morning and had my free breakfast (i.e. Chicken Patty, my hand-made waffle, and muffin). We checked-out at 9 A.M and headed to WASHINGTON DC. Yeah capital of USA ... fantastic! The traffic was pretty smooth, and we managed to arrive there around 11 A.M. To test how powerful my new CANON telephoto lens, I snapped hundred of pics like crazy along the way.

Botanical garden or something (refer to xinen's blog =)

Guess what... Taken while the bus was moving

Our first destination was National Women's History Museum. The museum is dedicated for the diverse historic contributions of women, of the nation's history. The tour guide asked us to walk faster otherwise we couldn't cover all places. Luckily, I managed to take some pics.

Xinen - Observing pictures of soldiers

Hurry, hurry ... I love this pic. Look so natural!!

Our next stop was Arlington National Cemetery. This is the final resting place of many who gave their lives in service to the country. Two US presidents—John F. Kennedy and William Howard Taft are buried here.

An eternal flame beside JFK's grave

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, containing remains of unidentified soldiers from World Wars I, II, and the Korean Conflict

Next - Iwo Jima War Memorial
Iwo Jima War Memorial, or the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) War Memorial depicts the 6 men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima in World War II, 3 of them who did not survive the battle. This is 'one of the few government locations in which the American flag may fly through the night'.

The statue of 6 men

Ok, our journey continued. Near United Station, we had our lunch!! The food was ok, but large portion!! Oooh no, need to exercise again! Luckily, when I weigh tonight, I'm still ok. Hehe ... lame excuse.

From left-right: Kathy husband, Katy, Jean, and Thor my boss =)

Hey Sebastian! Don't move your head dude... =)

Capitol Building
After lunch, we headed to the Capitol building. It was amazing! So huge ... inside so cool ... Haha, we didn't manage to enter the building cos to visit the capitol, we need to have invitation and follow some procedures.

Capitol building - front view

group pic outside Capitol building

White House
Wow, I can't imagine ... I'm able to see white house with my own eyes. The president is not around when we were there. Well, may be next time. Interesting to notice, there was a protester camped out at the White House. Guess what, it is an old lady.

An old lady camped in front of White House

A default press conference spot at White House frontyard

Chin Yong, Me, and my boss

After spending couple minutes at the white house, we continued our journey to Albert Einstein Memorial. A 12-foot sculpture of Albert Einstein is seated on a bench in front of the National Academy of Sciences. The place is kinda hidden and therefore we could take group pictures.

Pplz say rub Einstein's nose to get clever

Lincoln Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial is one of the most profound symbols of American Democracy in the world.

Just sitting and reflecting on the steps outside can be a lesson in history. This is where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. In 1939, the African American contralto Mariam Anderson performed an Easter Sunday concert on the monument steps. She had been shut out of performing in Independence Hall by the D.A.R. Eleanor Roosevelt arranged the concert. More that 75,000 people gathered here to hear her amazing voice.

Washington Monument and Reflecting Pool pic taken from the top of Lincoln memorial

Remember Forrest and Ginny meeting in the reflecting pool in Forrest Gump? Here is the place where the scene was taken.

Huge Abraham Lincoln statue.

This is probably one of the most used and photographed presidential memorials. The building faces the reflecting pool and the Washington Monument. It was built in 1922. Engravings of the Gettysburg address and his second inaugural address flank Lincoln. Interesting to note, in the first column of Lincoln's second inaugural address, the word "Future" is misspelled, reading "Euture."

Misspelled word "Euture" at the right flank of the building

Vietnam War Memorial
The Memorial consists of three sections: the Three Soldiers statue, the Vietnam Women's Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, which is the most recognized part of the memorial.

The Three Soldiers statue

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall or usually simply called The Wall

OK, our journey stopped here. After we dropped Raju out of the bus (haha), we went back to Cleveland. 5 hours is not enough to visit Washington. We surely need to come again!!

Dutch Galleries along the way back

For dinner, we stopped at Hoss' Steakhouse, Pennsylvania. Well, another free dinner. That's wat I need after such a long day. "I'm full ... ". Hehe. We reached our apartment by 1.30 AM, longer than expected since the bus had a problem such that it needed to be replaced.

Ok that's all for this 2-days trip. Fantastic!!

Rockwell Automation Fair - Baltimore

2006-10-25T22:36:00.000+08:00

Last night, my Canon EF 70-200mm telephoto lens finally arrived. Wuhuuu!! Now I can sleep well. Ooopps, hold on. I should not sleep 'cos we gonna go to Baltimore today! Yeah ...
So, we met at 12 midnight, and boarded half an hour later by bus. The trip took about 6 hours. Yup, I know what you think (@!#$!@!%) ... But luckily the bus was pretty spacious so I could sleep well. We stopped for a toilet break after 3 hours drive, and arrived at the Baltimore Automation Fair at 6 am. It took for a while to clean up my messy hair and my sleepy face. Anyway, this place is huge! We have a lot of chances to visit many booths from various departments. Not only Rockwell products, but also various 3rd-party-products and client-applications are shown as well. There are autodesk, Cisco, Cognex, and several universities such as CASE and CSU.

I did manage to take a picture with a real NASCAR car, but accidently around 150 pics are gone 'cos I pressed wrong button. Stupid me!! Arrggh!!

Ok .. let's continue the story. After having lunch there, we went to hands-on class. The class is quite huge and well organized. We learnt about Factorytalk AssetCenter (looks pretty much the same as the concept of clearcase) and got free wireless optical mouse. Good stuff yahhh!

We arrived at hotel around 5 pm and I managed to sleep for an hour. Hehe .. I should share a room with my roomate, sebastian. Pretty weird, but who cares! Here I took a picture of my room.

For a dinner, we went to seafood Philips restaurant. And before that we had an hour free time to tour around downtown Baltimore and the harbor. Here some pics taken by my precious camera.

RA ABC group pic

Handsome guy looking at the crescent

Stupid pose with a nice lighting

The dinner was good except for the wasabi. I hate wasabi a lot! But overall enjoyable. I have a good conversation with my managers. Wuahaha ...

Huge crab ... absolutely not my dinner

Now, this is my dinner =)

Another group pic

Baltimore harbor at night

I love this picture. Good setting, good lighting

To be contd ... Washington trip

Harvest Party

2006-10-19T10:35:00.000+08:00

Yeah young professional, once again back with another gathering event. This time is harvest party. The participants are: Rockwell staff, university students, co-ops, and Singapore team. Around 40 peoples are there.

Get together - College student, staff, and young professional

We started our dinner by lighting up the fire. The bonfire is used to grill the sausages (pretty obvious hehe). You know what, we used wood to hold and to grill the sausage. Pretty unique hah!

Oooh almost forget to mention about pumpkin carving! Since we are getting closer to the Halloween, the organizer made a competition for it. Take a look of our pumpkins!!

Erwin's pumpkin and us

Erwin, pumpkin, and me

All participants gathered for photo session

We reached back the apartment around 10 pm. Arrghh, I forgot about Smallville. Well, fine I can always watch it on the net. Ok, I'm off. Kinda sleepy liaoz.

North Chagrin - MetroPark

2006-10-15T22:35:00.000+08:00

Today is again SUNNY. A nice day to take pictures!! Yeah ... North Chagrin Metropark which is around 15 min from my apartment is our destination. Today, I'm with Andrian, Sebas, Erwin, Ching Yuh, and Rico.

FYI, The Cleveland Metroparks, are a system of nature preserves that encircle the city of Cleveland. These generally follow the river valleys that flow through the region to Lake Erie. Known as the "Emerald Necklace", this network includes hundreds of miles of walking, bicycle, and horse trails, parks, picnic areas, five nature education centers, six golf courses, and abundant fishing holes (quoted from: Wikipedia)

Below is the map of Cleveland Metroparks - taken from clemetparks

Our journey started from Strawberry Lane, and we were heading to Buttermilk Falls Trail (toward south). We saw a lot of pplz jogging and cycling there. Well, indeed today is a good day for such activities. If only ... I have a bike here (stop dreaming puji!)

Oooh yah, I'll show you some of my pictures taken by my precious SLR camera.

Ok Let's move guys!

Hey guys wait for me!!

I like this picture ... the composition looks good

Beautiful creek along the trail

Look how great the nature is!

Ching Yuh and Sebastian with their cameras

We stopped for toilet break and continued our journey towards north via Maple forest.

Nice maple leaf yaaah!!

Well, honestly we were lost in the middle of "jungle". We were out of nowhere! Our next destination should be Squire's Castle, but we ended nearby main road. Luckily, we did manage to find the way back to our cars. Haha...

At the end of the journey, we dropped by Strawberry Picnic Area. The pond there are full of geese. Being smart, we threw some rocks and seeds to the pond to attract the geese. Yeah, they told it was food. Hehe, sorry ... we just wanna took your pictures!

Poor geese

Nice scene - How great Thou art

Well, actually it is not that cold ... wuahaha

In our journey back to apartment, we met our colleague, Joe. Yes, He gave us a direction to the Squire's castle! Being curious we went there and took some pics.

Squire's castle

Overall, today trip is great. Good weather, and good place! Should try another park within next several weeks!

My First Snow

2006-10-12T22:31:00.000+08:00

Have yourself ... a merry little xmas!! What? Wait ... wait ... wait! It is not even halloween yet! Suprisingly, it is snowing today. Weird ... Isn't it too early? For most of us, Singapore team, we have no idea how the snow looks like, how it tastes, how fun it will be. So once, Xiong Shen said "It's snowing outside", we ran as fast as we could to see it. Furthermore, we went outside just to "feel" it. Dave Fuller said "You guys drive me crazy." "Wait until you don't want to go outside for next following months"

Anyway, We are having so much fun taking photos! Haha, it is good to take a break for a while!

Hmmmm.... wonderful!!

Snow outside our office (P.S. look at my cool reflection)

Most of us come out to see the snow

Ching Yuh, Erwin, and Xin En - snow snow

Look at Kok Song expression

"It is cold, and WINDY!!" - Notice Ching Yuh's badge

Just hope that I could adapt well for the upcoming winter. Luckily, Greg said we are going to have warm winter. Hope it will!

Cleaning My Rebel XT Sensor

2006-10-04T10:46:00.000+08:00

Finally my cleaning kit that I ordered a week ago from micro-tools has arrived. Wuhuuu!! But the biggest challenge has just started. After spending a lot of time to browse many CANON forums about how to clean SLR sensor, I decide to try it by myself (instead of spending 50 bucks to sent it to nearby local shop).

It is not easy for the first timer. Trust me. I keep reading the manual from internet again and again. Here are the good links to the Copperhill method.
1. CopperhillImages: Click here
2. Nicholas R. Tutorial: Click here
3. Making your own tool: Click here
4. Petteri's Pontifications How To: Click here

Hey now, I can clean the sensor by my own!! Though, I can't made my sensor fully free of dust, I am pretty satisfied with it. Now, I can snap clearer scenes. Wuhuu!!

Chagrin River and Cuyahoga Valley Challenge

2006-10-01T22:05:00.000+08:00

Today, after going to the mass and having lunch, me and Andrian go to the Chagrin River nearby our apartment to take pictures. It is a sunny day. Great!! Here, some pictures taken by my precious Rebel XT.

Hmmm ... it is too early to head back to apartment, so we decided to go to Cuyahoga valley, hoping that we could snap yellow-red leaves there. It took 30 min to reach there. We walked for about half hour along the small creek and eventually met Dave Fuller. He said "You should wait for another 2 weeks before all trees turn into red and brown". "You might want to rent a bike and cycling along the valley" ... Hmmm ... may be next time Dave. We are kinda tired. Anyway thx for the suggestion. We will back again, probably during winter for skiing at Brandywine.

Today Special Lunch - Soto

2006-09-24T21:35:00.000+08:00

Quick entry... Today, I make Soto (or known as Mie Rebus in Malay) for lunch. Hey ... it tastes nice!!

Chin Yong's Bdae

2006-09-24T09:34:00.000+08:00

Tonite is Chin Yong Bdae. We plan to give him a surprise. This morning, we went to Super Walmart. Actually, we wanna check for the winter clothing, but end up buying groceries. "Hey guys, why not make brownies for Chin Yong?" Yeah, so we decided to bake our own brownies.

Me and the brownies (plus Xin en behind me)

Under supervision of Ameek, Kok Song, and Ching Yuh, we made the cake at my place. Within 2 hours, the brownies is ready. But, oOoo no... it is now 9.30 PM! That means we only have 30 min to let it cool inside the fridge, cos we plan to celebrate his bdae by 10 pm.

Chin Yong and his bdae cake

The lame thing is Erwin and Andrian screw up the surprise. They went to his place before 10. Hiya ... Anyway, we are having a good time there.

Xin en and guitar

Smile dude!!

Chicago Trip Day 2

2006-09-19T21:50:00.000+08:00

Second day, I woke up arnd 8 o'clock Cleveland time. One of the first who can wake up in the morning. Hehe. Erwin, and Chin Yong went down to check the car. Another surprise!! One of our car is given a ticket 'cos we are not suppose to park there. Wuahaha ... Blame the hostel lady that told us to park there since there was no parking lot available at night. Luckily, it is not towed. Ok, nvm. Let's continue our story.

In the morning, we once again took a train for Field museum (nearby Soldier Field). From a train station, we walked for about 1/2 mile. The street was crowded with Chicago Bear supporter (American football team based in Chicago, Illinois). Trust me, I have never seen a bunch of pplz marching to the stadium for the game. Never happen both in Singapore and Indonesia.

Field museum - Chicago

Huge totem in front of the museum

Look how tall the totem from the ground

Actually, I didn't go inside the museum, since I thought it will be pretty much the same as normal museum. The cost is around $22. So we split up from this point. Me, kevin and sebastian decided to go somewhere else. Here, the picture inside the museum (courtesy of Erwin's camera).

Dinosaur ... Hugee!!!

Ancient elephants

Sebastian and me: "Where should we go?"

Finally, we decided to go to United Center where Michael Jordan statue is located. Luckily, no match today so we can freely pose in front of the statue. Here some pictures of it (courtesy of Sebastian's and Kevin's camera, since I left mine in the car)

From the stadium, we headed back to the hostel to take our car. We planned to go to the lake shore. We have KFC for lunch. There was a lady with baby in front of KFC asking for food. It's pity to see her carrying baby desperately. We gave her a burger to eat. Several pplz inside the restaurant gave her money as well. I pray for her eventhough I'm kinda skeptic about her condition. I always think that America is full of rich pplz. I think I'm wrong.

Kevin at the lakeshore before raining

Since, we still had sometime, we went to the Loyola college to take a look of its facilities. NTU is bigger though. Hehe.

Kevin and Sebastian nearby one of Loyola's hall

At 5 o'clock we headed back to Cleveland (after picking pplz from Field museum). The journey once again took about 5 1/2 hour. This time, no over speed, no speeding ticket. Good job pplz!! Thx God, we arrived savely. It is a such unique experience. Maybe once in the life time. K ... wanna sleep now. c u

Chicago Trip day 1

2006-09-18T21:33:00.000+08:00

Today we are going to CHICAGO!! Wuhuuu, another State!! OK, since this blog gonna be long, I separate it into 2 entries.

A night before departure, me and Ameek baked Brownies!! Remember the brownies that I mentioned before. Yup, it is the one Rose Ann gave us. Honestly, I was afraid if I need to experience another "fire incident", so that's why I asked Ameek and Chin Yong to "supervise" me to bake and made use of her oven (instead of mine of course =)

We started baking at 8. End up at 10 pm. Turn out to be good!! Wuahahaha .... We cut it into pieces and put it into Ameek's fridge. Glad, it has brownies' shape. After baking, I went back to my place and started packing. I slept pretty late that nite. Around 1 pm. I should wake up at 4 pm 'cos we are agree to meet at 5 am. Today, we have 2 cars and 9 pplz. Me, Sebas, Erwin, Kevin, Ching Yuh, Ching Yong, Ameek, Kok Song, and Ying Lun. Ameek led the way 'cos her car has GPS installed.

Well, it was a long trip. Around 5 hours!! And, it is not cheap because of $123 (per car) speeding ticket. Hehe ... Erwin and Ameek drove over 80 mph, so the traffic police along Indiana highway kindly gave us the tickets. Yup, our fault ... We were so eager to reach Chicago ASAP. Well, pplz learnt from their mistakes ritez!!

Around 11.45 am, we arrived at the city. It is such a huge and "active" city. Along the beach, a lot of pplz went for campaign. Around 12 o'clock we arrived at the hostel. Don't you ever thing how luxury the hostel would be. 'Cos it is not. Hehe, trust me, NTU is much more better than that. The hostel is pretty near to Loyola college and subway. Good! So, after having lunch at Mc Donald (cheap lunch, 2 burger for $2 +tax), we decided to take the a-day-train ticket for $5 and headed to famous Millenium Park.

A picture above remind me about Power Ranger's boss tube Wuahaha

A metal thingy with egg shaped at Millenium Park

Happy people standing across the bridge at Millenium Park

As usual, handsome guy. Wuahaha!!

Me and friendly stranger dogs ... Hehe

So ... thirsty! Pplz queueing for drinks from water cooler

Well, the park is pretty crowded. Probably, since that Saturday is a sunny day. A lot of performance at the Millenium Park, such as Celtic and Irish performance. Kinda unique and coolz!!

Hey Kok Song!! What are you doing?

We contd our journey to Sears tower - One of the most tallest building in the world. Click here for the website. Along the way we took a break for a while and posed in front of the fountain.

Sebastian - Funniest picture of the day

Traffic jam nearby Sears tower

Hey look!! Sears tower

Various newspaper boxes along the road

Yeah, finally we reached Sears tower - The tallest office building in USA. Well, I thought WTC is taller than Sears, but I'm wrong. From the top most level, Chicago looks very small. Following are the picture taken from the Sears Skydeck.

Trivia: Chicago - WINDY city!!

Next, Navy Pier! We tried to find the nearest bus station to reach there. What is Navy Pier? It is a 3,000 foot long pier on the Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan. Its primary purpose was as a cargo facility for lake freighters, and warehouses were built up and down the pier. However, the pier was also designed to provide docking space for passenger excursion steamers, and in the pre-air conditioning era parts of the pier, especially its outermost tip, were designed to serve as cool places for public gathering and entertainment.

This place looks like Clark Quay, Singapore. But, it is bigger, "windier", and more crowded. We had our dinner there. The chinese food there tasted pretty lame. Bo-pien, I ddin't want to have Junk food again for dinner. We spent several hours there before heading back to our hostel.

City landscape from Navy Pier

Cheerz, guys!! After several times re-take the picture, hehe!

Feris Wheel!! Wuhuuu

To experience the beauty of city at night, we took Feris wheel. At the first, I feel pretty childish to ride this, but it is pretty nice. Unfortunately, my camera can't be used to take pictures from the top most edge of Feris wheel. Sianzz!

Alright, windy city... today is a good day for us, except for the speeding ticket. Hehe. Around 10.30 pm, we WALK back to the hostel. Kok Song led the way. "2 more blocks"... "2 more blocks" ... "Yeah now shd be 2 more blocks" ... Wuahaha, thx anyway Kok Song. Once reaching the hostel, I took a bath (don't ask how the bathroom looks like, you don't wanna know), and slept peacefully.

OK... let's continue tomolo.

Party at Jim Kay's House

2006-09-09T21:33:00.000+08:00

Hurraayyy ... Today is the day we have been waiting for. Party at Jim's house. FYI, he is one of the managers of embbeded team. Friendly, and nice guy. The party started at 4 pm. But we kinda lost 'cos Erwin led the way 'without' map. Anyway, we have prepared a lot of gift for this day. I bought mooncake from MArriot Hotel Singapore. I gave up my precious Double Egg Yolk (trust me, it is damn delicious). Wang Jiao brought a huge chinese decorative fan as a present. Other than those gifts, we bought Godiva and wine as well.

His house is huge and very spacious. Imagine we can play volley and soccer at the front yard, basket ball at the side, and place to start bonfire at the back yard. Sound good? Additionally, Rose, his wife has prepared a lotz of food for us. Snacks, and drinks are there as well. Did I forget to mention the dessert? YEAH ... I like the brownies. Rose said "it is easy to made. Just follow the instruction!!" Hmmm ... she actually gave us a box of brownies to make. Hehe ... Kok Song passed it to me and said "Puji can make for us, can't you?" Wuahahha ... OK. Well, FYI, I've never baked anything before.

Ooooh ... Don't forget about Murphy and Comet! These golden dogs are amazing. Very friendly, smart, and obedient. Murphy is more active as he is younger than Comet. He is very happy to play a ball along with us. When we played volley and soccer, he always tried to catch the ball.

The picture above is my favourite pic taken by my SLR camera. Good composition and very natural. Those 2 kids is Holly's children: Abby and Kyle (if I'm not wrong hehe). Kyle is the youngest among us. They are so lovely!

Look at the house! I guess we can't find this kind of house in Singapore. Rare in Indonesia too (unless you are very rich).

We played volley until nearly sunset. I was a fun game. Look at the sequence of the game above.

Hehe ... nice picture

Look how happy were we

To end the party, I prepared my SLR camera, and took this picture.
Other pic can be found at my Zooomr Account.

Lunch At Stir Crazy

2006-09-08T21:32:00.000+08:00

Today is the last day for Jeffrey staying at Mayfield. So, we are throwing a small party for him. Well, it is not exactly a party though. Hehe ... it's a lunch at Stir Crazy. We choose this place 'cos Legacy Village is pretty near to the office. Anyway, I always love to go to Legacy Village.

From the right to left: Jeffrey, Raju, Andrian

Hmmm, we are sure goin to miss you. And you are going to miss X-mas and winter here, aren't you? Hihihi ...

Continuous shoot by Ameek. Good Job!!

Group photo at Stir Crazy

I have myself Thai Curry Fried Rice. Hmmm not bad, but the service is good!! Another nice lunch experience. And JEf, see you again at Singapore ... Hehe

Delicious Mooncakes

2006-09-07T22:20:00.000+08:00

Just wanna show the mooncakes that I bought from Marriot hotel back in Singapore. Double yolk, Green Tea, and Lotus Seed....

Hey look at my dinner

2006-08-21T22:48:00.000+08:00

Short blog today... Just wanna show my home-made dinner today. No Sebastian for this week since he went back yesterday to Singapore. My turn will be next week. Ooo yeah friends ... I'll back again.

I cooked Lemonade grilled chicken with black sweet soy sause, bok choy a.k.a bai cai, and tomato fried egg. Haha ... good dinner!!

My First Golf Game @ Shawnee Hills Golf Course

2006-08-18T21:33:00.000+08:00

It's friday evening. It is a GOLF time!! Woohoo ... my first golf game. Today, I am going to Shawnee Hills Golf Course with Sebastian and Andrian. The field is extremely huge and amazing. We are not playing at the course, but at the driving range. For $6, I got a full bucket of balls (~around 68). Andrian said it is much cheaper here than Singapore.

At the first half time, I could hardly hit the balls. Haha ... who said it is easy? I used a 5 iron and Andrian used a 7 iron. Well, for the sake of the beginner (me too), I should probably explain a bit about the golf club types (sticks).

There are: driver, iron, wood and hybrid. Woods are the longest clubs in the bag and mostly used for long shots. The longest wood, the 1 wood, is usually referred to as the driver. It also has the biggest head, making it ideal for use off the tee. The shorter woods are referred to as fairway woods, and feature a shallower face height which enables players to hit them off the turf. Irons are used for shorter shots than woods, usually shots approaching the green.

After several swings, I am able to get used to the game, but yet I can't swing high and sometimes the hit is unoriented. Haha ... at least I can hit the ball. Golf is fun and very relaxing. But once you lose concentration, you lose the game. Look at how I swing the club.

Driver is harder. I can't even hit the ball properly. Should practice more may be. Hehe :P
We played until 8 pm today. For dinner, we went to China Buffet nearby apartment. Wow ... Asian food. Oooh nooo ... Hahaha!! They serve sushi, dimsum, crab, various shrimps, noodle, rice, etc. Once again, it is a delightful day. Thx Lord!!

Bowling at Freeway Lanes

2006-08-17T12:00:00.000+08:00

Bowling is always fun. It is even more fun 'cos today, I bowl with the young professional from my company. Sound coolz!! For about $14, I could enjoy 2 set of games and unlimited pizza. Moreover, I could get to know other colleagues from different countries.

Hey, who is that :P

Me and the team at Lane 14 (excluding Chin Yuh)

Hey, they are great!! For one game, they could reach around 140 points. Well, at least I hit 3 digits for my first set. I was bad at the second set. But the game is amazing!!

Sebas, Kevin, Nathan, Song, Me, and the great Mike Irby

Sarah's team

Group photo (hmmm where am I???)

Alritez ... Enough for today. Looking forward for the next gathering in the future. You guys ROCKzzzzz!

Dinner at Shuhei Restaurant of Japan

2006-08-16T23:59:00.000+08:00

Well, another dinner with my big big boss today. This time, the dinner is at Japanese Restaurant called Shuhei. Wooow, you must be kidding ritez!! You should know that to have fishes for meal here in Cleveland is expensive and hard.

For the appetizer, we have sushi, sashimi, tempura, sake, and asahi for drinks. Everything looks great (excluding wasabi, haha). For main course, I order grilled Sea Bass fish. Delicious!!

Nice rice wine a.k.a Sake

Tempura as the appetizer

Sushi and Sashimi

Grill Sea Bass as main course

We are surely having fun today. Thx once again to the company! The managers are great and friendly. For dessert, I have green tea ice cream and cheese cake. Not bad!!

Delicious Green Tea Ice-Cream

Me, my colleagues, and the managers

Tat's all for today!!

Sunday @ African Safari Wildlife Park, Sandusky

2006-08-13T23:16:00.000+08:00

Alright, another sunny day at Cleveland!! This morning, 10 o'clock, eight of us met at lobby for another weekend trip. This time is .... Safari at Sandusky!!! Ooooh, another Sunday at Sandusky. As predicted, today trip is easy. We reached there about 12.30 after having lunch at Mc Donald. Yeaah, I brought my Rebel XT along with me!

The ticket per car is $46.95 or around $11.75 per person. Make sure you printed out the online coupon at their website to get this deal. Once we arrived, we went to the zoo section for a while. Well, you could see "a lot of your friends" there. Spider monkey, white handed gibbon, peacock, lama, warthog, bongo, etc. The pig race was the most interesting. Haha you should watch that!!

We continued our journey to get closer to wild animal by our cars. Each car was given a huge bucket of animal food. There was one naught deer near the entrance of the safari. It grabbed and took away the whole bucket of food from Chin Yong hands. Haha ... lousy!! Oooh No, We could no longer feed other animals!! The animals are smart. They won't get near to the car if there is no food.

Following images are taken from the trip today.

Weekend at Aurora Farms Premium Outlets

2006-08-12T23:09:00.000+08:00

Today is a sunny day. A good day to spend for shopping!! Happy?? At the one side, YES. But, oooh noooo shooping >>> MONEY <<< yup another way to waste your money. But ... Look ... I have been a good boy today 'cos I spent less than $30 for green Calvin Klein pants and $10 blue Billabong jacket. Cheap and nice quality jacket of course!!

Me and my flatmate, Sebastian

The place is good. Not as crowded and as big as the Grove City, Prime Outlet at Pennsylvania. But at least, there is Calvin Klein store here. Woohooo!!

I went together with Andrian and Sebastian today. Hmm ... lucky I was not with Kevin, Xin En, and Erwin 'cos they ended up spending > $100. Haha ... Well, it is not even half a month yet, but I have used up a lotz for shopping esp for my baby Canon SLR Rebel XT.

Alright ... I should probably sleep now. I have been very active blogging these days 'cos I dun want to lose any events in my life. OK ... Tat's all for today

Baseball @ Jacobs Field

2006-08-10T22:32:00.000+08:00

Yeah my first live MBL (Major League Baseball)!! Wuhuu ... you can't even imagine how comfortable you will be at VIP room. Thx to my company, me and my colleagues are there for Indians v.s. Angels game. FYI, Cleveland is the city of Baseball. Between 1995 and 2001, Jacobs Field sold out for 455 consecutive games, a Major League Baseball record based on Wikipedia. The stadium is extremely huge (43,345 seating capacity). We arrived there around 5.30 PM. At the gate, we could see a lot of pplz queuing to enter the podium.

The game started at 6 PM. It is a 3.5 hours game. A long game yachh!! Lucky I played the game when I was in primary school. Well, not a real game though. Haha it was Nintendo game. But, it is good. At least I know the rules. Ralph, my big2 manager taught me about how to read the statistic at the status board. Hehe ... good to know more!! Thx, Ralph.

"Cheers ... !!" Said My Precious Rebel XT

Watching at the suite and eating fantastic food givin an added-value. Today's menu: Hotdog, Tortillas chicken wrap, salad, nice pepper chicken, salty popcorn, pretzel, etc. Ooooh not forget, they served beer, wine, various liquors as well. Cool!!

I hope I can bring the whole dessert cart inside the suite

Sebastian's strawberries chocolate layered cake

Did I forget to mention about my camera??? Yeah, today, it is the first official time I brought it to the open space. Lucky I bought the Samsonite tripod and the bag for $18 at Micro Center. Cheap ritez!! I like it a lotz!! Wuhuuuu!!! Alritez, tat's all for my Rebel. If I keep remembering, I can spend whole day only to talk about my Rebel. Hahaha ...

Anyway it is a good game. Indians totally rockzzz!! The result: 14 to 2. Amazing how pplz keep cheering both teams during the game. The game ended around 9.40 PM and we reached the apartment at 11 PM.

For more pics, check out my newly created Zooomr account. Enjoy guys !!

Put In Bay island

2006-08-06T22:29:00.000+08:00

AlriteZ ... Today I woke up at 7 AM 'cos today is a Put-In-Bay day!! Yeah ... After long discussion yesterday, we decided to go for Put-In-Bay this weekend. George (Test Team Manager) and Gordon (Angmo colleague at Rockwell) suggest the place as well. Ten of us are in this trip: Me, Sebastian, Kok Song, Ching Yuh, Erwin, Xin En, Jerry Wong, Raju, Kevin, and New Thiam Peng, the new test manager.

Hmmm what so special with this place?? Let us explore!!

We arrived at Jet-Express by 10.30 AM. Are we going by the ferry? No, we decided to go for cheaper ferry @ Port Clinton ($12 v.s. $24). Within 20 mins, the ferry took us to the island.

A nice building nearby Jet-Express terminal

A picture of Me and my colleague, Xin-En @ the ferry

Once we arrived, we went to GAZEBO and got our lunch. Not much choice there, so I should stick to Hamburger and Fries.

Funny angmo singer at GAZEBO

After lunch we spent sometimes to go around the area. And we ended up walking to Perry Cave on this hot day for about 15 mins. The entrace ticket is $7. Well honestly, it is not worth of my money 'cos the cave is pretty small. But it is cold inside (which is good on this hot day).

Me and my colleague, Kok Song @ Perry Cave

Nothing much after the cave except Raju's back hehe ><

Oooohhh Poor Raju

We continued our journey to the research center, but unfortunately it closed at 5. So, we decided to return to the terminal and have our dinner at Applebee's, Milan Rd, Sandusky. Good service as expected!! I got myself a Fish&Chip as it is pretty rare to get in the States (or maybe only Cleveland).

On the journey back, Me, Kevin, Xin-en and Kok Song lost at Ohio Turnspike. Well done!! It happens twice now (after Cedar Point trip). Funny, we are the only that have GPS in our car and get lost. Haha ... Maybe there is a curse if 3 of us (Me, Kevin, and Xin-en) are in the same car.

Overall, today is just fine. Should probably bring our car or bike at Put-In-Bay instead of just walking around the island. Tat's all for today.

Convocation @ NTU

2006-07-28T23:10:00.000+08:00

Wuhuuuu!! Finally, the day that I have been waiting for. GRADUATION!! Yeah, today, 28 July 2006, 10 AM in the morning, all graduands of Computer Engineering are seated at Nanyang Auditorium. After 4 years long journey in NTU (incomparable to 18 hours flight on Singapore Airlines ... SIA is awesome!! Good services, good plane, good foods), after going through 8 semesters, 8 weeks of examination, more than 10000 hours study time, finally Lord thx you!!

Easy or hard? Well, I should probably hard but enjoyable. I will definitely miss my friends, lecture theatre, tutorial rooms, canteen A, canteen 14 (not canteen 11), libraries, exam time (when the sleeping time will never enough), lecture notes. Thx all for your support!!

For the left: Masli, Maggy (the winner of Alumni medal), Ronald, Me, Marissa (this girl won 2 medals)

Photo with Rockwell Colleagues

ME and my God Parent Endang

OK back to ceremony. It is a crowded days. Many graduands bring their parents, including me. Me, my parents, my aunty, and my oldest sister. I woke up arnd 5 AM this morning and reached NTU on 7.45 AM by MRT and 179 bus. This is the first time I brought my family to Singapore. So we took public transport instead of Taxi. I show them, my lecture theatre, tutorial room, general office, SAO, library, and canteen A of course. I am very happy to have them at my convocation day.

My family and my aunty

Me and my parents at Nanyang Heritage

To celebrate my graduation, we are going to Crystal Jade Kitchen at suntec city for dinner together with my far relative, Lina Hai Yen. Great food, crowded place yet good services. Overall today is AWESOME..... Yeahh

Roll'in Cedar Point

2006-07-03T10:10:00.000+08:00

Wat a fun day today! We went to Cedar Point, the “Best Amusement Park in the World” for a record eighth consecutive year in an international survey conducted by the readers of Amusement Today according to their website (Click here). The rollercoasters are AWESOME. I got the ticket cheaper by $6 'cos I bought from the company. Yeah only $33. Hmmm ... trust me it is worthy. Our journey started by riding Raptor where it let passengers' legs to dangle. Hehe, actually I skipped this ride. The queue was an hour for 2-3 mins ride.

Next ride was IRON DRAGON. It is better than Raptor. I mean smaller and less scary. HAha. Just nice for warming up. The ride should be 2 mins or less, but unfortunately we were there for at least 20 mins. We were stuck on the ride. Some of my frenz stucked on top of the rail. Me... luckier... my seat is near the end point.

Hmmm not so bad. Bcos of this, we can get a ride to Millenium without queuing. FYI, the queue usually 2-3 hours. In 2005, Millennium Force was voted No. 1 in the "Best Steel Roller Coaster in the World" category in a poll conducted by Amusement Today. Amazing, I was brave enough to ride Millenium. Coolz ... Everyone shd try this. I can't think how high it is from the land.

The picture above is Top Thrill Dragster. Reaching a stratospheric 420 feet tall and topping out at an unheard of speed of 120 mph, this new steel screamer helped Cedar Point reclaim the title of owning the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the universe. Neither me nor my frenz went to Dragster since it was rainy. Haha ... there is always a reason.

After Millenium, we grabbed Hotdog as a lunch and waited for the rain to stop. Although I was head ache b'cos of Millenium, I contd to ride next rollercoaster. Cork Skew and Mean Streak were challenging as well. I didn't take Mantis, bcos instead of seating, you are standing while riding it. Crazy!!!

Well tat's all. 4 ride within a day. At the evening we went to game area to play some games. Hehe... not winning anything though. The snoopy shop was a great place to end the day.

I have a $9 Pizza Buffet as my dinner outside the amusement park, but quiet near. Nice place or bcos I was damn hungry. Haha. It took 2 hours to reach the apartment. Along the road back, we could see firework at many spots. Now I know how American celebrates the independence day. Wonderful ....

Experience the Niagara

2006-07-02T21:47:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, July 1, we went to Niagara. I woke up early in the morning and start the trip on 7.30 AM. Nine of us squeezed into 2 cars, Ameek's and Chin Yong's car. It is about 190 miles from the apartment (hmmm quite far, about 4 hours trip). We reached there around 11.30 AM. The parking lot is crowded with many cars. $10 per car per day. We went inside a visitor arrival center to find an information about Niagara. They suggested us to join ~$60 tour. Luckily we didn't decide quickly, cos at the end we bought a $24.50 ticket for the entrance to Niagara (without tour).

I ate pizza for both lunch and DINNER there. Yup, dinner. That means we stay til late of night. We were waiting for the firework at 10 pm. They said canadian side looks better than here. But, no choice, we don't have visa to enter Canada. But, trust me, even from US side, we could clearly enjoy the scenery and experience the mist. YEah .. Awesome!!

After lunch, we went to the theatre about history of niagara (~20 mins). Bit sleepy there. Next, we went to the river side and wander around the park there. Lucky, yesterday is a sunny day. Thx God! Later we went to 'Maid of the mist'. The boat there took us to look the Niagara falls from a closer distance. They gave us a blue raincoat to cover our clothes from the mist.

We continued our journey to Aquarium of niagara. From there we cont'd our journey to George discovery center. Not much there, except there was a pretty lady @ the aquarium hehe.

It was about 5 pm when we left discovery center. We proceed to Cave of Winds in which we could come as close as possible to the Bridal Veil Falls and experienced the water splash. Although, we were covered by raincoat, the water wet our clothes. Very cool here. Water stream, a group of seagulls, pplz from diff countries (Japan, India, Korea, France, etc) are there to experience the Cave of Winds.

We had our dinner around 7-8 pm and continued to the Terrapin Point where we could come closer to Horseshoe Falls and join the crowd for the laser and firework show. Very nice view!! From here, we could see the grand Casino and other buildings from Canadian side. Around 9-9.30, there was a light rain showering us. But, the rain stop just before firework at 10. YEah ... It was a wonderful trip, wonderful place, wonderful experience with my wonderful colleagues.

We returned from there at 11 pm. Before leaving, we passed by Hard Rock cafe to buy something. I bought a very nice T-Shirt there. Wuuhuuu ... We reached our apartment around 3 o'clock in the morning. The trip is memorable. You guys should go there one day. Yes, you SHOULD.

Dinner @ Blake

2006-06-27T20:49:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I have a dinner with my big big boss at Blake's Seafood Restaurant & Bar (Chagrin Falls). It is located in the historic village of Chagrin Falls, with breath-taking views overlooking the waterfalls. The building was built in the 1850’s. So it is about 150 years old. Damn cool.

We were seated at private dining room (hmm ... wonder how costly it was) and from the windows we could enjoy the 'mist' of the nearby waterfalls. It was about 7 pm we arrived at the place. Although, we were a bit lost since the road is a bit sloppy and confusing, it was really worthy to have a dinner there.

I was at the same table with my Singapore Manager Thor, (We have the same chinese surname lolz), Rockwell US Managers Tom and Scott. Though sometimes they talk about automation thing (which I don't have any idea about), they are very friendly. We discussed about the seasons in states, how diff. to the Asia, their families, what they do for the upcoming long weekend holiday (1-4 july), about those 10 books that was given to me for reading (hehe a lotzz yah), etc. Thor did mention about 911 and pizza thing to them. Now, everyone knows about my stories. Hahaha.

For main course, I had "chicken marsala".
Sautéed boneless breast; mushrooms, garlic, shallots & marsala wine sauce; choice of one side.
Interesting!! Nice!! And for the dessert, I got a chocolate cake which is very delicious. Hehe hope tat I won't gain weight here.

Below is the picture of us (singapore team) and managers from US side. Tony, the big big boss is in the middle sitting beside Chin Yong and Jian Jun.

More about the restaurant, click here.

First Weekend @ Cleveland [Part 2]

2006-06-22T11:55:00.000+08:00

OK let's continue the story.

Sunday, 18 June 2006
Morning in Hampton Inn always started with free breakfast. Hehe...
Today some of my friends moved to the allocated apartment. My turn will be on Monday. Therefore today I mostly spent my time @ my room watching world cup, HBO, surfing internet etc. I didn't go to church today since I have no car and there is no church nearby. But, after Google-in the map of Cleveland, I found 2 churches nearby the apartment. St Francis of Asisi is only 116 ft (about 5 mins walking distance) and St Clare though it is a bit far to reach by foot but it shd be fine to reach by car within only 10 mins. Wow Thx God!!

For dinner, I went out with Sebastian to buy frozen cheap pizza @ nearby market. The funny thing was we overcooked the pizza. In fact, we BURNt the pizza in lobby microwave.

Huahahaha... Hey dun blame us, the instruction said 400 F -> 20 mins in oven. The smoke came out from oven and eventually triggered the smoke detector. The receptionist said "Hope that the fire alarm won't sound". Right after that, guess what...? Whole hotel was in alert. Sound of siren was every where and very loud. And hey... the police came and checked the hotel. "Roger, confirm, it is from microwave" he said. I can't stop apology tat time. Very baise (malu). Previously 911, now pizza. So wat next ?? Hehe. Stay tune. I wanna sleep now. c u

First Weekend @ Cleveland [Part 1]

2006-06-22T11:03:00.000+08:00

Cleveland is a such wonderful place. Ga kayak Singapore ato Jakarta. You can see lotz of trees and flowers along the road. The weather for whole week is just nice. But quite dry, therefore lotion is a must to moisturise my skin. A bit windy here. The temperature is in the range of 58 - 80 F.

Saturday, 17 June 2006 - Gus the Tur
Today morning, Adrienne, the tour guide, brings us to downtown so tat we may hav a glimpse of Cleveland. We went to Burke private Airport (which becomes Car Racing now), Jacobs Field (the famous baseball court), University Circle, Beachwood, lake Erie etc.

Those pics above are the building located at downtown Cleveland. Go to my flickr for more pics.
Hey, there is a gay parade at downtown. Hahaha ... Interesting. Very crowded leh. Along the way, pplz wave their hands towards us. They are so friendly. Maybe angmo is like tat.

Behind: Yinglun, Rico, Sathyia, Jean, Kevin, Erwin, Raju, Sebastian
Front: Wei Liem, Jian Jun, Sharath, ME, Andrian (the Bali guy), Kok Song, and Wang Jiao

We return to Hampton Inn by 3. Hmm ... wat a wonderful day. to be continue ...

Journey to USA

2006-06-17T12:17:00.000+08:00

14 June 2006: I finally get a chance to go to the States for a year job training with Rockwell Automation. Well, I slept only an hour today, 2 - 3 am Singapore time. Honestly, I've have just finished packaging by 2 am. What a rush!

A day before (which is 13 June), I went to Lucky Plaza, Orchard Rd, to get a new luggage. It cost me $32. Not that expensive, just nice.
So I brought 2 big luggages to the States. Remember these, cos I will explain later what is going to happen upon the arrival in Cleveland.

Around 4.30 am, we (me and 3 other indonesian colleagues) arrived at Changi Airport Terminal 1, and rushed to United Airline counter for check in. The officers asked about my staying in USA, what I am doing there, and checked over my briefcase. Well, I've never thought that Singapore will be this strict. But everything looks fine. We got into the plane right on time. The plane boarded on 6.45 am, but delayed by 30-40 mins, because there was problem with the air cond, etc.

Merely after entering the waiting room, the officer asked me, "Sir, there is a problem with your luggage, please take a seat first. I'll let other officer explain it to you". What?? What happen to my luggage I said to myself. Within 5 mins, other officer came to me and told me that one of my luggage's zipper was opened / torn and I was so worried about it. He brought me to the cargo and asked me to wait for my luggage. But I didn't have a chance to confirm and to look at my luggage since the lack of time. Hmmm... nvm. Let's continue the story.

We were on the plane for about 4 hours and we did transit at Hongkong Airport for a while. Wow ... unexpectedly, Hongkong airport is AWESOME. It is surrounded by many hills, and it is very nice scene. We took photos there and continue the journey to the west... ooops I mean journey to US.

We departed from Hongkong at 12.45 PM Singapore/Hongkong time. And spent about 16 hours at the plane. You can't imagine how hard we were at the plane. Sitting for more than 1/2 day is not a fun thing. Although, they provided us with various movies, we honestly cannot TAHAN (can't get used to it).

We reached Ohare, Chicago Airport at 4 AM Singapore time / 3 PM Chicago time. Now, it is the time of truth. Seriously, I was a bit afraid. At the immigration. The officer again asked me the same qns. "Where u r goin to stay? What do you do here? etc". And by the end we were brought to the corner side and asked to fill special form. The officer told us to return to him when we wanna depart from US. Me and Sebastian were the first being questioned by the officers, followed by Andrian and Erwin. While waiting for them, we ran into the luggage claim counter and get our bags. Fortunately, all luggage was there. I was so relieved. It is true that the zipper of my luggage was opened. But none of my stuff was missing.

GREAT, we passed the immigration ... But we missed the flight to Cleveland, Ohio. Therefore we should arrange another flight. Fortunately, we got a next flight to Cleveland by 7 PM. So we now have a plenty of time. After our luggages were checked by Custom office, we tried to find a way to inform the driver (who will pick us up once we arrived in Cleveland) about the delay. Luckily, Erwin, my friend had a phone card to call Natalie, Rockwell HR. Next, we tried to find a food court since we were hungry tat time. We found out a small food court and grabbed sumthin to eat. I bought fried rice with spring roll and chicken mushroom, and I cost me about US$7. Soooo Expensive ....

We waited about 1/2 hour at boarding room before departing at 7 PM. By 8.30 PM we arrived at Cleveland airport which is much smaller than Chicago's. No security check back there. At the luggage claim counter, I was shocked that the locked of my new luggage was opened by force. Waduh, serem banget, ternyata itu di Chicago, mereka random check bagasi orang2 and mungkin lebih ketat buat anak2 indo. Gua dapet letter di dalem bilang, kita berhak untuk nge-cek isi koper and motong kunci kalo emang dikunci. Doooh, BT. ORang gua ga bawa yg aneh2 kok. Napa ga minta diperiksa pas di Chicago? Napa maen langsung rusakin koper. Sedih neh. Jadi harus beli koper baru disini. Ga ada yg ilang seh, but BT aja.

Driver yg nge-pick kita2, namanya John. The driver here is damn cool man. They wear a coat and the van is huge and coolz also. It took about 30-40 mins to Hampton Inn. It was about 9 PM Cleveland time (or 10 PM Chicago time) when we arrived and the hotel. It is a very nice place to stay. We got a queen-sized bed and the thing is each person got a separate room. Yeah ... Finally I can have a proper sleep.

At nite before I slept, I tried to call my family back in indonesia but I can't dial the calling card properly. I was asked to call 1888- ... number. And to make a call from the hotel we should press 9 first followed by 1 (for long distance call) and followed by the number we want to call. Therefore, I pressed 9-1-1888 etc. And it turned out to be 911 emergency call. Wuahahaha ... "911 may I help you?" Then I answered " Ooops, sorry wrong number". Well the most silly thing tat I have ever done. Later on, the hotel called me and asked "Does everything OK sir?" I explained to him tat I would like to make a call but it reached 911 instead of a proper number. I guess there is a police behind him. I am soo MALU haahahaha.

But anyway I can't dial the calling card til now. Therefore I'll get to down town this Saturday when we get a Cleveland tour. I miss my family as well as Asian food cos within these 2 days I only got Sandwiches, Burger, for dinner. Luckily we (4 of us) got a chance to have a lunch with Rockwell Senior Managers at CheeseCake Factory. A nice place to go. They served a large size of meal and delicious CheeseCake with various flavours. Great!!!

Alrite, I should go to sleep now. As I should wake up in the morning for the tour. Thanx God for everything.

Jesus of Nazareth

2005-10-01T11:09:00.000+08:00

In mathematics, he is the one who proved that one plus one is equal to one by marriage and trinity.

In English he obtained the highest degree by teaching parables.
In chemistry, he turned water into wine without chemical reaction.
In biology, he was born without the normal reproduction method.

In physics, he disproved the law of gravity when he ascended into heaven without any aircraft and the law of locomotion by walking on sea.
In economics, he disproved the law of diminishing return by feeding 5,000 men with two fishes and 5 loaves of bread.
In agriculture he turned the fishers of fish into fishers of men.

In history, he is the beginning and ending, the ancients of days.
In government, he said that he shall be called wonderful counsellor.

Can somebody Shout

"HALLELUJAH!!! THE GRACE OF GOD MAKES A MAN FUNCTION WITHOUT STRUGGLE, FAVOUR MAKES A MAN/WOMAN RECEIVE WITHOUT ASKING. THIS WILL NEVER DEPART FROM YOU. YOU'LL BE GRACIOUSLY FAVOURED IN GOD'S NAME I PRAY AMEN, SAY AMEN AND SEE YOUR BLESSING BEFORE END OF THIS MONTH AMEN."

So shall it be in Jesus name (Amen)

Take Care and enjoy life doing the things that matters most to you in life because what you are is God's gift to you and what you become is your gift to God.

Let bring the divergence converge

2005-09-29T00:20:00.000+08:00

Today RCIA (catechism) session, somehow enriched me (well, it always enriches my faith actually).
We discussed about the differences among us and about how this divergence leads out to conflicts. “Do different religions lead to conflict, Father?” one of my sister asked. “People tend to use a religion as a reason. But it is far than religion. It may be because of social status, races, political background, and …” Well think about it further. It is true. The conflicts occur because of human ego, and selfishness. Being stereotype, being superior to others, etc … etc…Well, I won’t discuss much about this since I will become a huge topic (may be), and I’m quite tired now. Creating 2 new entries at the same time will be quite tiring.
We did come across about scripture reading today (Mark 3:31-35). “My mother and my brothers are whoever does the will of God”. Jesus himself didn’t highlight any differences among pplz. And it is a good lesson for us to learn. Stop judging person for his/her religion. All religions are good. None of them are bad. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us not highlight the differences, but celebrate the differences. Amen.

Wonderful day

2005-09-28T23:46:00.000+08:00

Today is a wonderful day? Yes, it is. Though, again, it is another long day for me (well I reach my room @ 10.30 pm), today is a day of joy. Haha… Wonder right?
OK, I tell you a secret. My java code works today!! Now, I can post new entry to blogger using my own code. Thx God. You know, it takes me almost 2 weeks to figure out about ATOM API. Yesterday, I was still desperate about the error appeared on the screen.

“We're sorry but the Username/Password combination you've entered is either invalid or you don't have permission to access this Blog.”
“Credential expired”
“Java EOFException – unexpected end of stream”
“Error 500 - generator MUST be present inside of the entry element for a POST”
These errors were the source of my problem. Terrible, it took me more than a week to debug. Really “cia lat” (a.k.a exhausted). I even tried more than once to sniff HTTP connection using Ethereal (look at the image above). For those developing client software using JAVA, please do take note:

Try not to use ROME entry. It doesn’t work. Over past few days I tried to customize the entry, it still didn’t work properly. Somehow it generated “Error 500 – generator must be present inside the entry element” which is unpredictable. I do know why. Hope someone from Blogger or ROME Developer could answer my doubt.

Instead, use simple string stream (or input stream) to generate the content-body your HTTP POST.

Either using HTTP or HTTPS (HTTP over SSL) are OK. Simple point your end-point to: http://www.blogger.com/atom/ or https://www.blogger.com. If you use HTTPS, you won’t be able to see HTTP POST using your Ethereal program. The only thing there is HTTP CONNECT and continuation.

Now, I should continue to clean up my code. Hopefully it will 100% done before exam starts, which will be a month later. Yeah …

I promise to change my blog layout soon. But, since I’m kinda busy (yeah … as a final year student .. yah you know).

atom test

2005-09-28T17:13:00.000+08:00

Testing the Atom API

Struggling with my FYP

2005-09-21T02:43:00.000+08:00

As a final year student in NTU, I feel very different. I thought my life will be simpler without any ECAs for this year. But, it is wrong. My FYP (final year project) is the source of the problem.

Just wanna share a bit about my FYP. It is about automatic annotation mobile blogging. Cool right? This project could be separated into 3 big sub-projects:

Mobile client application (for Nokia Series 60, Symbian C++)

Server application (which client might communicate with, and which will be needed to collect certain information regarding about automatic annotation issues)

The protocol itself. HOW to communicate between client-server, and server-BlogSites such as blogger, manila, typepad, etc

Picture above shows how the client interface will look like. That will be my expectation. Haha ... But, I am currently focusing on server implementation. Building Yahoo! API and weather service methods as the inputs of server are relatively easy. But for communication via XML-RPC or ATOM to Blogger (for example), is the problem. I could not find an open source JAVA-BLOG-CLIENT that has been implemented posting to blogger or other blog sites. Kinda struggling now!

A lot of open source Java-based-Server-Blogs such as: Pebble, Blojsom, Roller, but why no client implementation? I could only find simple tools such as ThinBlog, and chronicleLite, which won't help me much

Other thing is I could not find a syntax to post IMAGE to Blogger. Anyone knows about it? I guess I should use Flickr to post the picture rather than using Blogger Picture API.

OK kinda tired now. It is 2.40 am in the morning and I'm still looking forward for the solution...

Posting via Thin Blog

2005-09-20T00:16:00.000+08:00

"ThinBlog is a very small Blogger client. It lets you post to a Blogger weblog from your desktop. It's written in Java, and uses Thinlet for its GUI. And of course, XML-RPC for transport." --Quoted from ThinBlog site

Well it is true that it works, but it is XML-RPC, not ATOM-based implementation. With XML-RPC, you cannot even specify the title of your blog. Comparison between ATOM and XML-RPC as a transport layer is provided at:

Atom API Documentation for Blogger

API Known Issues

XML-RPC for Blogger 1.0

Blogger API 2.0 documentation(Draft only)

A lot of things which XML-RPC can't do have been refined pretty well by ATOM API, which is cool. But, I NEED to start LEARNING again argghhh ... Tired..

Stephanie's last day in I2R

2005-09-16T15:05:00.000+08:00

Today is the last day for Stephanie, my French colleague during my industrial attachment, in I2R. She has done a lot for SnapToTell project (which is a basic of my FYP project|). Thank you Stephanie for being here in I2R. You did a great job. Though the client appz doesn't work on the new Nokia 6680, you still have given many contributions to the project. Bye bye... Bon voyage ...

It's my turn to start reading 6 Symbian books. Wuahhhh ... Hopefully I could finish reading it before the end of my fyp

Maincomm appreciation dinner

2005-09-12T14:38:00.000+08:00

Finally, it is recess week... Happy? Hmm ... Not really. It doesn't mean holiday for me. FYP, assignment, subject review, meeting @ I2R... Yes, those are my main menu for this week.
Today is the first day of mid-term break. But, too bad. Can't relax. I should go for SnapToTell meeting. After spending more than 3 hours there, Chun Liang and Wilsan remind me about maincomm dinner. Yeah ... This is the last day for having such priviledge as a CEC (Computer engineering club) maincomm. We go together to Mandarin Oriental hotel for dinner buffet. You guys may be wondering how much it will cost? The answer is $45++ for dinner. Haha ... What a great opportunity not to miss this chance.
A lot of food there. Indian, Thai, Chinese, Western, Sushi (I like sushi ...), seafood, and tasty dessert. Wuahhh ... "You must try this champagne cake" said Tanya. It's really nice. Overall I shall rate the food and the services: "4 out of 5". Pariss (at marina square) serves Dimsum and Sushi more than Oriental. I went there with my IA supervisor last 3-4 months ago. Yet I prefer Pariss, but the dessert at Oriental hotel is incomparable. Soooooooo ... tasty. In japan, "Oishiii ..." should be a correct term. Haha ...

These are the pictures taken with other maincomms. It is a wonderful experience to meet you guys. I'm proud being the IT officer.
After enjoying dinner, we go for bowling at marina square. We play until we forget about time. "Wuahh .. it is 12 o'clock liaozz" Hahaha ...

Ayase Haruka

2005-09-11T16:01:00.000+08:00

Kawaaiiii ...!! Ayase Haruka. Currently watching her movie, Sekai Chuushin De, Ai Wo Sakebu. The story is about how a cute girl (Aki) fell in love with a guy named ... hmmm I forgot the name, who care haha. And how strong she fought against Leukemia. The moral of the story is how human beings should try their best till the end of the life. Huehuehue ... Anyway, Ayase is so cute... She was 17 years old when she played in this drama. That means this year she is 18 years old. Still young but talented. Below is the synopsis of the movie.

"I thought I might be using a lifetime's happiness in a moment. I was that happy and she was that beautiful." A young boy stands on the red earth of Australia under its blue sky. It is 17-year-old Sakutaro Matsumoto. His time with the girl comes back to him. The colored sand runs through his hands and a tear appears on his cheek. He wakes up. It's 2004 and he is 34 years old and in Japan. He thinks "I have been in a world without her for 17 years." Returning home to see his old high school for the last time before it is demolished, Saku confronts anew the loss of the love of his life, Aki, to leukemia 17 years ago. Now a medical researcher at graduate school, he has been living as if half of him died with her since then. Based on the bestselling novel that sold over 3 million copies, the past and present come together in this love story that is both pure and sad. -- Quoted from: Jdrorama.com

Can't stop crying watching this drama series. Recommended guys!!

LG4163B DVD Writer

2005-05-01T20:50:00.000+08:00

Yup ... Finally, today I have my own DVD Writer ... yeah!!! I'm very happy since the price was pretty reasonable ($108) cheaper by $10 to my prediction. AND the color is BLACK. Not bad ... the DVD drive run very smooth [without much noise]. Till now I have burn 11 DVDs and 1 CD(most of them are Jdramas) without fail.
Recommended!! No regret at all. With region free software, you can watch DVD from other regions. So what are you waiting for?

My List of Recommended J-Dorama

2005-05-01T01:49:00.000+08:00

My Rating ....

Pride
Last Christmas
Summer Snow
Shot Gun Marriage
My Husband [Mukodono]
Beautiful Life
Wedding Planner
Gokusen
Good Luck
Long Vacation
GTO
Beauty and Beast
My Little Chef
Oyaji
Hero
Forbidden Love

Too Old >> kinda forgot ...
Tokyo Love Story
Love Generation
Love Revolution
Ordinary People

Not bad ... but not good
Friends
Kimi wa petto

My Fav J-Dorama Artiste

2005-04-28T23:51:00.000+08:00

Ooops i forgot to post her kawaiii photo ... hehe

Yuko Chan ... Yuko Chan ...

2005-04-28T23:50:00.000+08:00

This girl is one of my fav J-dorama artist, Yuko Takeuchi.... Yeah she looks great in Pride and lovely at My Husband (Mukodono)

Making IA Report

2005-04-28T22:54:00.000+08:00

Anyone know how to create IA report in 3 days. Looks like this week goin to be hard to past. Today, 4 france guys came to my lab. I guess they are scientists from IPAL. Hmmm ... I didn't any words came out from their mouths except "merci" ... I need to ask my france colleague to teach me her mother tongue.

I still dunno how my code will work. I've just realised that there is no UNSIGNED BYTE in JAVA. Gonna look thru other solutions. Pretty sianz leh.

mY First PoSt

2005-04-27T09:28:00.000+08:00

K this is my first post ...
Todae, i'm sitting AGAIN in front of computer in my office doing my works... Pretty lazy to start making IA report. But "bo pien", I should start soon otherwise ... hmmm u know.